When I made that request to Panditji, he said that it would be better if this Committee goes on behalf of the Government And then the Committee was appointed. There was no pressure, no indication of any specific line on which the Committee was asked to conduct the inquiry. It was entirely an independent Committee as your Hon. Commission is today".

The statement of Suresh Chandra Bose in no way contradicts Shah Nawaz Khan's story. He said:

" Prime Minister Nehru anticipated that such an inquiry would come to the finding that Netaji was not dead which he knew to be correct. So, he would be proved to be a liar for having stated that Netaji was dead. Soon after this, a few leaders held a meeting in Calcutta and said that though the Prime Minister had declared that Netaji was dead they did not believe it, and so they decided to form a Committee with me as its Chairman to make an inquiry regarding Netaji. Shri Shah Nawaz Khan was in that meeting and a copy of the resolution passed in it was given to him with a request to hand it over to me and to persuade me to give effect to the resolution passed. So, on his way to Delhi he met me at Tarmattar, Bihar, and informed me all about it and told me that he would report the matter to the Prime Minister. Obviously, Shri Nehru knew that Netaji was not dead whereby he would be branded as a liar and so he appointed a 3-men Committee with two Government officials, viz. Shri Shah Nawaz Khan who was the Parliamentary Secretary and Shri S.N. Moitra, ICS, who was the Chief Commissioner of the Andamans and Nicobar Islands, and my humble self as a non-official member taken from our family."

5.16 It will be seen that Suresh Chandra Bose is drawing inferences which are not warranted by the facts, and that the appointment of the committee by Nehru in no way implied Nehru's belief that Bose was alive.
A photostat copy of the "principal points' is appended to this report and it will be seen that a phrase has been added by Shri Suresh Chandra Bose in his own hand and his signature appears at the end of the document. There is no indication of any pressure having been exercised on Shri Bose before he expressed his concurrence to the conclusion regarding Netaji's death at Taihoku Airport. Subsequently, Shri Bose changed his mind and declined to sign the final draft of the report, and the majority report was placed before Parliament and published.

On the facts, therefore, there is nothing to indicate that there was anything fraudulent or stage-managed about the report from the time the Committee was appointed till the time the majority report was laid before the Parliament. Suresh Chandra Bose had been present throughout the hearings, and he had appended his signature to the principal findings upon which the report of the majority was prepared. I cannot believe the story of the extremely naïve and indeed stupid offer of a governorship which Shah Nawaz Khan is alleged to have made to Suresh Chandra Bose.

It is impossible to believe this story. In first place, Suresh Chandra Bose would not have been appointed a member of the Committee at all, if it were known that he had a completely closed mind on the subject and that he believed his brother to be alive.

Also, a committee of which a close relative of Netaji was a member, was expected to inspire confidence in its deliberations. Had Nehru wanted to "pack" the Committee with persons who would carry out his behests, he would not have in cluded Suresh Chandra Bose at all. So, his very inclusion is proof of Nehru's bonafide.

In the second place, had Nehru intended to purchase Suresh Chandra Bose's judgement he would have sounded him before his appointment was announced, and the offer of governship would have been made before the Committee commenced its labours.

There is no mention of any offer of Governorship to him by Shah Nawaz Khan in Japan. This story was obviously invented much later and introducing in order to furnish some slight justification for denigrating the integrity and bona fides of Prime Minister Nehru, despite the fact Nehru nominated to the Committee the persons who were most likely to win the respect and confidence of everyone interested in discovering and learning about Netaji.

From the above discussion it will be clear that there is not a shred of evidence to support the allegation that Nehru was acting in a vindictive of revengeful manner. There was no reason why he should have wanted to procure a false report about Netaji. When the Committee was appointed, Bose had been absent for more than 10 years. Nehru believed that Bose would not have remained in hiding after India became independent. Even as far back as 1946, it had been stated publicly by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel that there was no bar upon Bose's movements, and that if alive, he was free to enter India and move about as he wished.

So, it must be found that the entire allegation that Nehru was hostile to Bose and contrived to obtain a false report regarding his death as a result of an air-crash at Taihoku is without any substance.