The government on Wednesday informed Parliament that “two top secret files” pertaining to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose have been declassified and sent to the National Archives of India.

Minister of State (Home) Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary told the Rajya Sabha that two files related to Azad Hind government are available with the National Archives. The government said there are 87 files which cannot be brought to public domain owing to their sensitive nature and “not desirable from the point of view of India’s relations with other countries”.

The NDA government’s stand is in sharp contrast to the position taken by them when they were in opposition few months back. Home Minister Rajnath Singh had in January — when he was in the opposition — made a demand in Cuttack, Netaji’s birthplace, that the UPA government should make public the records.

In a written reply to a question raised by Sukhendu Sekhar Roy of Trinamool Congress, the MoS replied, “Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs has appointed two Commissions namely Justice Khosla Commission and Justice M K Mukherjee to enquire into the disappearance of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on 11.07.1970 & 14.05.1999 respectively. The Commissions submitted their reports on 30.06.1974 & 08.11.2005 respectively. National Archives of India has prepared the detailed list of the Justice Mukherjee Commission papers and the same have been made available for the scholars visiting the Research Room, National Archives of India (NAI) from 17.11.2014.”

The reply further said, “Moreover, as informed by Ministry of External Affairs, 29 files are lying with them. Prime Minister’s Office has 60 files related to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, out which, 2 top secret files have been declassified and sent to National Archives of India. As informed by Ministry of External Affairs, they are not considering to declassify the records and sending to National Archives of India.”

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