The 'transparency revolution', as Defence Minister A K Antony coined it, has swayed a parliamentary standing committee also to recommend extension of the Bill before Parliament to give protection to the whistle-blowers to cover everybody in the government.

Members of council of ministers, judges in the higher judiciary, regulatory authorities, public undertakings and also the intelligence and security agencies and the Armed Forces, which the government wanted to exclude, should all be brought under the Bill, says the 27-member all-party committee headed by senior Congress MP Jayanthi Natarajan.

Releasing the committee report at a Press conference here on Thursday, Natrajan said there is no cogent reason to leave out any one of them from public scrutiny and accountability. In case of intelligence agencies and Armed Forces, it has no problem if the government comes out with reasonable exceptions to keep a balance between the operational needs of these forces and their accountability.

It has suggested that the Bill be harmonised with many more legislations like the Lokpal Bill and the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill since the main objective of all these laws is to tackle corruption and ensure accountability.

The committee has opposed the 5-year jail in the Bill for frivolous complaints as an attempt to scare away the whistle-blowers, asking the government to reduce the deterrent lest the very purpose of the legislation is defeated. It also wants right of appeal to the High Court on the ground that the whistle-blower had no malafide intention and the complaint was based on information at his disposal at the time of the disclosure.

The panel also rejected a provision putting undue burden on the complainant to provide proof to substantiate his case. "It would be unreasonable to expect a private citizen, who is the sufferer or at the receiving end having minimal resources at his disposal to place proof sufficient to substantiate the complainant." Once he makes out a prima facie case, it is for the competent authority to follow up the complaint to its logical conclusion, the committee stressed.

It has even asked the government to examine if the Bill's ambit can be extended to even the corporate world to help the insiders blow the whistle against irregularities and malpractices impacting share-holders, tax collections and violation of laws of the land.

The committee also disagreed with a ceiling on the whistle blowing of cases that are more than five years old, stressing that there should be no limitation. It wants a reasonable time limit for inquiry and action on the complaints alike the Right to Information Act.

"If the recommendations on such inquiry are not acted upon and kept in cold storage based on one lame excuse or another, the primary objecting of the bill, i.e. tackling corruption will be vanquished," the committee noted.

It also wants full protection of the identity of the complainant and guarantee against victimisation not only for the whistleblower but also the same protection to the persons who support him or help in the investigation. It asked the government to examine how to provide a foolproof protection to the whistleblowers that works against the vested interests using violence to suppress the truth.

The committee has also suggested that the Bill, christened as The Public Interest Disclosure and Protection to Persons Making the Disclosures Bill, should be worded with a shorter title "better reflecting the real spirit of whistle blowing."