Economic
Times: Mumbai: Tuesday, 11 August 2015.
Maharashtra
government was considering inclusion of whistle-blowers and RTI activists in
the proposed Witness Protection Act, it told the Bombay High Court today.
While a
policy to provide police protection to witnesses in sensitive cases was already
in place, a legislation would be framed soon, additional government pleader
Nitin Deshpande told the division bench of justices A S Oka and Revati
Mohite-Dere.
Apart from
the witnesses, the government was considering inclusion of RTI activists and
whistle-blowers in the Act, he said.
Giving the
government three months to frame the law, the High Court said until it came
into effect, the police should provide protection to whistle-blowers and RTI
activists upon request.
The issue of
protection of witnesses, whistle-blowers and activists was taken up suo moto
(on its own) by the court after the murder of Pune-based RTI activist Satish
Shetty in 2010.
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