RTI applicant appointed Info Officer.

The Sangai Express: Imphal: Tuesday, May 22, 2012.

In a strange reversal of roles, an RTI applicant who was seeking certain information from his own department has been appointed as the State Public Information Officer (SPIO) under the RTI Act.

Not only this, his superior officers have been appointed as subordinate staff in the rank of Assistant Public Information Officer (APIO).

A reliable source informed that Tourangbam Netrajit who was working as sample collector in Manipur Pollution Control Board (MPCB) filed an application to the MPCB's SPIO seeking certain information about recruitment rules and the ground water quality project taken up in Thoubal with funding from the Ministry of Forest and Environment.

There has been no response to the RTI application till date.

For Appeal Case No 71 of 2011 of the same application, the Chief Information Commissioner has already directed the SPIO to pay Rs 25000 to the applicant for not providing the information sought.

Even as T Netrajit was awaiting a reply to his application, an order signed jointly by MPCB Member Secretary K Jagadishore and Administrative Officer in-charge N Minaketan and issued on May 15 appointed him as MPCB's SPIO.

The same order appointed Environmental Engineer T Mangi, Principal Scientific Officer M Gonchandra and Assistant Environmental Engineer W Roshan as APIOs.

Interestingly, all these posts are superior to the post of Sample Collector which was held by Netrajit.

The MPCB staff have even started asking amongst themselves whether the new SPIO would have the capacity to issue orders to the APIOs who are much senior to him professionally.

Talking to The Sangai Express, State Information Officer Ch Birendra maintained that there is no harm in appointing an RTI applicant as the SPIO of the particular office where he is working.

This would rather help him obtain the information he was seeking.