We’ve a long way to go in protecting whistleblowers: Ex-director of research, Ranbaxy, Dinesh Thakur

Dinesh Thakur, ex-director of research, information and portfolio management at Ranbaxy, was awarded $47 million by a US court in 2013 after he took his former employer to court for unethical practices. In an email interview with ET, Thakur, based in Florida, says India does not have a similar law framework yet.


Do you feel it was easier for you to pull off a successful investigation against Ranbaxy as you pursued it in the US and not in India?
This question presumes that there is a legal framework in India that prosecutes the wrongdoing which I was able to conclusively demonstrate in a US court. If there was an equivalent legal framework in India, which held pharmaceutical companies that intentionally manufacture and sell substandard drugs to account, I could have given a considered answer to your question. A more recent example is what has happened to the company that sold defective hip implants to unsuspecting patients in India who have suffered unspeakable pain. Can you identify a law on our books which held the perpetrator to account? In the absence of such a legal framework, this question asks me to compare apples with oranges.


Was it difficult for you to carry on with your career after Ranbaxy?
It is true that people who stand for truth are often marked with a scarlet letter and ostracised from the corporate world. Thankfully, US laws protected my identity as a relator [someone who works with the government to prosecute wrongdoing] until such time that the company pled guilty for its felonious behaviour.

At the level of a director at Ranbaxy, how was your experience standing up to your company’s unethical practices?
Once the cat was out of the bag about the company’s modus operandi, my continued employment became untenable at Ranbaxy. Senior management at the company actively undermined my role and made it hard for me to continue to function in my role.

Do you feel India has adequate protection for whistleblowers as of today?
No, it does not, far from it. If it did, upright officers like Ashok Khemka (IAS officer in Haryana) and Sanjiv Chaturvedi (IFS officer in Uttarakhand) would not be treated as pariahs. Honest individuals like Shanmugam Manjunath (Indian Oil Corp officer) and Satyendra Dubey (NHAI officer) wouldn’t have been murdered. We have a long way to go in providing lawful protection to those who speak against corruption and intentional wrongdoing in India.