Patna,(BiharTimes): Following the murder of yet another RTI activist in Bihar social activists have once again raised the demand for a national legislation to protect the rights of whistleblowers. 

Forty-eight year old Ram Kumar Thakur was killed on March 23 evening in Muzaffarpur district of north Bihar. As he was a lawyer and returning from the district court advocates of the district went on strike to demand immediate arrest of the accused, job to a family member and payment of Rs 20 lakh as compensation. 

He was a member of the Bihar NREGA Watch and had allegedly been receiving death threats for speaking up against corruption in his village. Thakur was even attacked on a few occasions.

Ruchi Gupta of the National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information (NCPRI) is of the view that the continued attack on whistleblowers underscores the urgent need for a strong whistleblower protection bill. However there has been no movement on the whistleblower bill for more than one year.

She further said that a weak whistleblower bill was introduced in Parliament in the Monsoon Session of 2010, and was passed in the Lok Sabha in the Winter Session of 2011.

In this period a number of whistle-blowers have been brutally assaulted or killed all over the country. Quite a few such cases have been reported from Bihar.

It is not only RTI activists who are being targeted. Even officials or employees, who dared to oppose the corrupt practice and worked as whistle-blowers have been silenced for ever. Satyendra Dubey, former IIT-ian and civil engineer with the National Highway Authority of India was one among them. He was killed in Gaya district of Bihar in November 2003 as he tried to expose widespread corruption in the Golden Quadrilateral project during the then Vajpayee government.

Similarly, S Manjunath, an Indian Oil corporation manager who exposed a racket in adulterated petrol was shot dead in 2005.

The Whistleblowers Protection Bill 2011 seeks to establish a mechanism to register complaints on any allegations of corruption or willful misuse of power against a public servant. The Bill mandates that any person making a public interest disclosure must identify himself and the vigilance committee shall not disclose his/her identity.