My Letter to President of India Sent On 3/4/08

From 3 April 2008
Jayashree JN
No 96, First Floor, RBH Road
KG Nagar, Bangalore 560 019

To
H.E. Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil,
President of India,
Rastrapathi Bhavan, New Delhi

Sub: Request to allow Government Servants to attend/participate in Integrity functions organized in memory of murdered whistleblowers.

I am the wife of an IAS officer Sri M.N.Vijayakumar(Karnataka Cadre, 1981 batch), who was one of the finalists for receiving the Shanmugam Manjunath Trust Integrity Award. He was nominated by some volunteer working for the Trust. He received the intimation to participate in the Award function in New Delhi, on 28/3/08. Incidentally Sri Manjunath who was murdered while performing his duty for preventing corrupt practices as an officer of IOL was from Karnataka. My husband immediately applied for permission to participate in the function. The Chief Secretary, instead of using his discretion to allow my husband to at least attend the function , he informed my husband that he can not even attend the function leave alone participating in the function. This is the worst disrespect that can be shown to an officer who was murdered for performing his duty with integrity.

Your Excellency in the Republic Day speech made it clear that not even a rupee meant for development should be allowed to go to corruption. Hon.ble Prime Minister of India has called upon just joined IAS probationers to tackle corruption head on The Administrative Reforms Commission has recommended encouraging whistleblowing and protecting whistleblowers. The letter issued by the Cabinet Secretary, Government of India in 2004 after the murder of another whistleblower Sri Satyendra Dubey clearly mentions the fact that there is no platform for officers who are harassed for taking principled stand and had suggested all states to constitute a standing committee for this purpose.. While in Karnataka my husband who has put in more than 26 years making efforts to increase transparency and provide corrupt-free service has been continuously harassed since June 2006. My husband’s repeated requests made over the last 18 months period to refer his case to the Committee suggested by the Cabinet Secretary has been ignored.

In view of above, I humbly request Your Excellency to direct the concerned to take following action.

1. Remove the old requirement of seeking prior permission to attend and participate any function organized by any organization set up in memory of murdered whistleblowers

2. Make it mandatory for the Central Government and the State Government where the function is organised to at least send a representative to any function organized by such organization.

3. Make it mandatory for all States to set up the Standing Committee suggested by the Cabinet Secretary, Government of India in his letter issued in 2004 subsequent to the murder of Sri Satyendra Dubey

(Jayashree JN )

Copy to Shanmugam Manjunath Trust , Mysore.
Copy to Hon’ble Justice Sri Santosh Hegde, Lokayukta, Karnataka, Bangalore
Copy to Sri.Sudharkar Rao, IAS, Chief Secretary, Vidhana Soudha, Bangalore

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