New Delhi: The mystery surrounding Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's disappearance or death more than 60 years back may finally end as the Central Information Commission (CIC) has directed the Union Home Ministry to furnish the documents on Netaji's reported death in a plane crash in 1945 within three months.
The decision came in response to an application by Sayantan Dasgupta, a member of Delhi-based Mission Netaji, seeking information about documents relied on by two inquiry commissions which concluded that Netaji had died in an air crash in Taiwan.
Terming as 'facile hypothesis' the ministry's decision to deny the documents on the ground that it could lead to possible unrest in the country, a full bench of the CIC headed by Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah directed it to disclose the information within three months.
"No study has been conducted nor any analysis made so far about the sensitive nature of the documents and as such, it seems to be only a facile hypothesis that disclosure of the documents would lead to a serious law-and-order problem in the country, particularly in the state of West Bengal," the CIC said in its 20-page order.
Dasgupta had sought certified copies of all documents exhibited before the Shah Nawaz Khan Committee (1956) and the Justice GD Khosla Commission (1970-74), which probed Netaji's disappearance. However, the recent Mukherjee Commission had contradicted their findings.
The commission, however, gave the home ministry the liberty to examine and analyze which specific documents could prejudicially affect the country's sovereignty and integrity if they were disclosed, and could thus be exempted from disclosure.
The panel said in case it was decided that certain documents were not open for disclosure, the ministry would have to give reasons for arriving at such a decision before September 30.
Dasgupta had filed an application with the Union Home Ministry on June 22, 2006 in which he had sought certified copies of the documents relied on by the two inquiry panels to arrive at the conclusion that Netaji had died in a plane crash in 1945.
(With PTI inputs)
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