NOTWITHSTANDING the strong recommendation of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to keep ministers, including the Prime Minister, out of the ambit of the proposed Public Interest Disclosure (Protection of Informers) Bill, 2009, a high-powered Committee of Secretaries (CoS) has decided otherwise.

In a meeting held on September 15, under the chairmanship of Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar, it was decided that “all the ministries and institutions which are under the ambit of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC)” would be covered by the proposed whistleblowers’ law.

As per the CVC Act, all public servants, including the Prime Minister and other Ministers, can be probed if any complaint is received against their conduct as public servants.

The Indian Express has a copy of the “secret” minutes of the meeting, which was circulated on September 30 to various ministries of the government.

The draft of the proposed law, which was recently finalised, had kept Union Ministers out of its ambit. This was despite the CVC’s stand that all ministers, except the Prime Minister, should be brought within the ambit of the law. The CoS ordered that the Bill be revised in view of its decisions and processed for further action within one month.

As first reported by The Indian Express, the Public Interest Disclosure (Protection of Informers) Bill, 2009 drafted by a committee headed by the Secretary, CVC, was sent to the CoS for a final decision. The other important decision taken by the CoS was that the proposed law should also include a chapter “for adoption of the BIll by the State”. As of now, the proposed law was meant for only the Centre. However, at the September 15 meeting, the CoS felt that the law would serve little purpose if state governments did not implement the law in their respective states.

... contd.