The Delhi High Court has issued notices to the Centre and the Chief Vigilance Commission to file their replies on a PIL seeking enforcement of guidelines for protection of whistle-blowers and formation of internal departmental committees in Central PSUs and organisations to enforce the guidelines.

The petitioner, Narender Khanna, had pointed out to the court in the January 6 PIL that following the Satyendra Dubey murder and in the light of subsequent facts, the Supreme Court had desired for, ‘‘pending legislation’’, a suitable machinery to protect whistle-blowers.

The Centre accordingly passed a resolution dated April 21, 2004 making the CVC the designated authority to receive written complaints from whistle-blowers.

However, citing a reply by the CVC in a criminal writ petition in another case in which the petitioner, himself a whistle-blower, had been allegedly victimised, the PIL charged the CVC with stating that ‘‘the resolution does not provide remedy in such matters if the appropriate authority (the organisation in which the whistle-blower works) decides to disobey its directions.’’ ‘‘Thus the very objective of the resolution is defeated,’’ the PIL says, charging the CVC with ‘‘distorting/truncating the effect of the original resolution.’’

The PIL also charges that the CVC does not receive complaints from junior staff, directing that they should be routed through senior regional-level officers. Pointing at the murders of Dubey and Manjunath by criminals outside their own departments, or other cases where the whistle-blowers have been victimised within their own organisation, the PIL has sought a Committee for their protection ‘‘in every government organisation, which will be responsible for the overall protection of the whistle-blower.’’