CIC tells home ministry to furnish info on Netaji

The Central Information Commission (CIC) directs the home ministry to furnish within 3 months documents on Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's death to an organisation in New Delhi.

The Central Information Commission (CIC) on Thursday directed the home ministry to furnish within three months documents on Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's death reportedly in a plane crash in 1945 to an organisation in New Delhi.

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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 so far made 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.

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.

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.