[2] The Act was approved by the Cabinet of India as part of a drive to eliminate corruption in the country's bureaucracy[3][4] and passed by the Lok Sabha on 27 December 2011.
[6][7] An Act to establish a mechanism to receive complaints relating to disclosure on any allegation of corruption or willful misuse of power or willful misuse of discretion against any public servant and to inquire or cause an inquiry into such disclosure and to provide adequate safeguards against victimization of the person making such complaint and for matters connected therewith and incidental thereto.
[10] Two years later, an Indian Oil Corporation officer, Shanmughan Manjunath, was murdered for sealing a petrol pump that was selling adulterated fuel.
Mahantesh was working as Deputy Director of the audit wing in the state’s Cooperative department and had reported irregularities in different societies involving some officials and political figures.
[14] The activists demanded that a law should be framed to protect the whistleblowers, to facilitate the disclosure of information and uncover corruption in government organisations.
[16] As a result, the Supreme Court, in April 2004, pressed the government into issuing an office order, the Public Interest Disclosures and Protection of Informers Resolution, 2004 designating CVC as the nodal agency.
[17][18] In March 2011, the Supreme Court refused to frame guidelines for protection of whistle blowers in the country, saying that it cannot make law.
[19] In August 2013, a bench of Justices K S Radhakrishnan and Arjan Kumar Sikri ruled that identity of whistleblower can never be revealed to the accused facing prosecution under Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
In June 2011, a parliamentary panel recommended that ministers, the higher judiciary, security organisations, defence and intelligence forces and regulatory authorities be brought under the whistleblowers' protection bill to check corruption and the willful misuse of power.
However, the Act has not yet come into force, because amendments pertaining to safeguards against certain disclosures relevant to national security could not be incorporated, as the bill was passed on the last working day of the 15th Lok Sabha.
[29] The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) was designated in 2004 to receive public-interest disclosures through government resolution; there have been a few hundred complaints every year.
However, the public in India have a low level of confidence in fighting corruption because they fear retaliation and intimidation against those who file complaints.