A study on the Laws regarding Protection of Whistle-Blowers in India

Whistleblowing is a heroic and a noble act that helps in preventing fraud, corruption and wrongdoings within an organisation. Even though the efforts of the whistle-blower and the risk taken by them in disclosing information is appreciated and valued, they face various challenges from peers, senior management, individual or group against whom he has whistle-blower. There have been various incidents which have occurred in India showcasing need for India to implement effective laws which will protect the whistle-blower and their interest. Cases like Satyendra Dubey, the Shanmugam Manjunath case, among others, demonstrated the necessity of regulations to handle whistle-blower cases in India. Provisions regarding whistle-blowers are contained in Companies Act, 2013, SEBI(LODR) rules and Whistle-blower Protection Act, 2014 which has not been implemented. However, the existing legislation has a lot of loopholes and setbacks. This paper studies the need for having laws for protection whistle-blowers and the existing laws regarding the same. This paper will also analyse the existing laws and the shortcomings in them.