Most of us have come across the term “Whistle-blowing ” many a time. Recent news on Infosys, suffering huge loss at the market due to whistleblowing has created a massive buzz. International Labor Organization (ILO) defined Whistle-blowing as “the reporting by employees or former employees of illegal, irregular, dangerous or unethical practices by employers”. In simple words, we can say, disclosure of unethical practices within an organization to the higher and concerned authorities. A whistle-blower can be internal or external. Internal Whistle-blower means someone or some group of employees (former or present) within the organization blowing the whistle whereas External Whistle-blower means someone or some group of employees who are an outsider to an organization blow the whistle about the wrongdoings. Unethical practices in organizations mostly are in the form of misrepresentations of assets, corruption, the act of misconduct, breaching of securities and policies and fraudulence with the financial statements.
Although honesty is the best policy, we still face the constant dilemma of whether to protest against any illegal activity. The bulging fear which restrained us from showing grievance against the unethical practice is retaliation. One can even have a life threat. The cases of Satyendra Dubey and Manjunath Shanmugam immediately cross our minds. Likewise, a false accusation can also make a company suffer tremendously by causing a decrease in valuation in the market. The accusation if proved wrong can make one end up in jail. So blowing the whistle is the test of endurance. Of course, the first step of a whistleblower should be informing the very next higher authority within the organization about the wrongdoing. If no action was taken by the organization then one can take the help of an organization like the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) who will conduct an investigation. Moreover, the whistleblower can be someone from outside the firm or organization as well. Thus if something is going wrong it will definitely come in the spotlight. Whistleblowing assures that the corporate does not make a profit at the expense of the public’s wealth. Whistleblowing mechanism as per Clause 49 of SEBI helps in intensifying the corporate governance standards of any company.
For a long time, India did not have any legal framework to protect the whistleblowers. The sacrifice of Dubey’s life in 2003 awakened the government. With the help of the Supreme Court, they initiated legal steps to address the anomaly. In 2004 the Public Interest Disclosure and Protection of Informers Resolution (PIDPIR) were introduced to protect the whistleblower. In India, we have the Whistle Blower Protection Act which provides protection to the people and even hides the identity of the whistleblower. Whistleblowers are protected under the Right to Information Act (RTI) and the Whistle Blower Protection Act amended in 2015. This Act also makes sure that no classified documents of an organization should be shared under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) of 1923. Any misdeed with confidential documents or information may lead to imprisonment for up to 14 years under OSA.
Scams such as Punjab National Bank, ICICI Bank, Satyam, and Kingfisher had a huge impact on the Indian economy. If there was a proper whistleblowing protection act then there was a strong probability that few of these scams could have been stopped. Whether whistleblowing is right or wrong depends on person to person because no two persons in the world can have similar attributes thus having different personalities and behavior. The choice of Right over Wrong, putting everything on the line, is Heroic according to me. From Satyendra Dubey to Arvind Gupta, some notable heroic souls have brought to light about the corruption and fraud in the top-level management. Often, whistleblowers are looked upon as traitors because they are assumed to leak the organization’s information to outsiders. But before calling them a snitch we must think twice because sometimes, in some way or the other we have been saved from the fraudulent acts because of them. Whistleblowers are like the gatekeepers in an organization who keeps checking on unethical doings and an essential part of the working environment.
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