As we all know, a whistle is a tiny wind instrument but when it comes to organisation whistleblower, it can shake a lot of things.
A whistleblower is a person who discloses the unethical deeds of an organisation. These wrong deeds could be illegal activities or any other organizational misconduct like fraud, corruption etc.
Is it necessary that whistleblower should be an employee of the organisation?
No, it’s not a necessity, a whistleblower could be an employee, supplier, contractor, client, or an individual who gets such information. A group of persons can also be named as whistleblowers such as a government agency.
Risks of being a whistleblower
It is risky being a whistleblower. If you are in a normal private-sector job, you can lose your job. If you are in a govt. job, then you can be slapped with serious allegations of compromising govt. secrets.
Some of the most famous whistleblowers who got into trouble because of their conscience are:
- Bradley Manning: Manning was a former US Army soldier who disclosed secret US Army documents to Wikileaks. He had to face Court-martial and prison sentence for that.
- Mordechai Vanunu: Vanunu was an Israeli nuclear technician, who disclosed Israeli nuclear program to the world. He suffered 18 years prison sentence for this act.
- Satyendra Dubey: Dubey was murdered in 2003 for blowing the whistle in corruption in NHAI.
Protection to whistleblowers
Whistleblower Protection Act 2011, was formulated by Govt of India. This act provides protection to the person who highlights wrongdoings in a govt department. But this act is restricted only to Govt and does not extend to private sector.
Large and reputed organisations in private sector have their own whistleblower policies to protect people who highlight wrongdoers. This also discourages wrongdoers by increasing the risk of getting exposed.
You can refer to the link below as well:
One Comment
Dibyashree
I can make blow of whistle.