Can PIO ask question?

[akanksha.chopra]

Hi

I am new to this forum; but have read about some success stories about RTI. I have three technical questions.

1. Can a PIO ask a question under RTI? If so, to whom should the question be addressed?
2. If a question is answered to the PIO, and if I receive a reply from another officer, is the answer to be accepted?
3. If a person asks a question to an officer who is neither the PIO nor APIO. is it valid? Is the officer concerned required to answer it.

Regards

Akanksha

[kushal]

Welcome Akanksha to RTI India.
I am not sure if I understood all what you meant
1. To whom you want to ask a question? Is it as a PIO to another PIO/other Office? Or an officer as a citizen, one want to ask a question from PIO?
2. Yes, if you asked the information from another PIO to be supplied to the applicant, then yes, that is deemed to be a reply by another PIO.
3. No, only PIO should answer the question, and the applicant should follow the procedure like depositing the fees, and applying to PIO. However, it is not a bondage, but you can offcourse help the applicant to the right procedure.

[akanksha.chopra]

Hi

Thanks for the reply. My question was whether a PIO can also ask questions to her office as an ordinary citizen. Since the question cannot be addressed to self if the person asking the question is the PIO, should it be addressed to the Appellate Authority or to the Head of the Department?

Regards

Akanksha

[kushal]

As you are the CPIO of your own unit, you have the sweeping powers to call for any file, thus getting information from within your unit should not be a problem. You must read the post of mine here : http://www.rtiindia.org/forum/3031-post2.html

Is there some peculiar case where you still want to go via RTI Route?

[mpai]

Originally Posted by akanksha.chopra

My question was whether a PIO can also ask questions to her office as an ordinary citizen. Akanksha

I am afraid Dr. Kushal has missed the point. As an ordinary citizen, you can certainly ask questions to your own office Akanksha. If the question you wish to ask is pertaining to your own branch office, you can certainly address it to the PIO of that office, even if its you. There is no bar in the RTI Act that the citizen serving as a PIO cannot ask question as citizen.

If the information is pertaining to another office, then perhaps you can address your application to the APIO of your own office and direct him to forward it to the PIO of the concerned office.

If you wish to avoid addressing an application to yourself, then you can send the application to the office of the AA. Certainly their should be a PIO in that office. I would also recommend that you ask the Head of your Department to appoint as many PIOs as possible under Section 4 of the RTI Act to prevent such kind of misunderstandings.

Best wishes

Manoj

[Anil Sood]

As a PIO u can ask qustion only to other PIO/department because as a PIO if your department is replying to you then you will be replying to yourself which is misuse of RTI. Agreed to mpai that Appellant Authority is the right person. In any case the application can be filed in some other persons name to avoid this situation

[colnrkurup]

May I suggest akanksha.chopra to read Section 5(5) of the Act which answer the first question beyond any doubt.