A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court for a direction to authorities to consider and pass orders on a representation for giving protection to whistle-blowers.
The petition also sought disbursement of service benefits to a retired BSNL Sub-Divisional Engineer (SDE) and others who had exposed an alleged ‘telephone lines scandal’ in 2007 involving former Union IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran.
A Division Bench comprising Justices Satish K. Agnihotri and K.K. Sasidharan has ordered BSNL and others to respond to the petition within two weeks.
The petitioners were N. Rajaraman, an advocate, and K.R. Ramaswamy alias ‘Traffic’ Ramaswamy.
They said that the retired SDE and some employees of BSNL had exposed a major telephone lines scandal six years ago. Because of this, they were victims of departmental proceedings.
The law to protect whistle blowers was yet to be put in place. Due to repeated representations, the CBI had registered an FIR in the issue.
The petitioners said they made a representation dated November 4 last this year to BSNL, Chennai, and the Telecom Secretary to provide due protection to the retired engineer and others. As no action was taken, they filed the present petition.
