Even after a thorough search, the documents pertaining to imposition of Emergency could not be traced in Prime Minister's Office records, Lok Sabha was informed today.

In reply to a question on whether the official record regarding the imposition of Emergency in 1975 was not available in the PMO, Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office V Narayanasamy replied, "Yes".

He also replied in the affirmative to questions on whether the correspondence between PMO and other authorities at that time were also not available.

The minister also said yes to a question on whether application under the Right to Information Act on the issue have been received by the PMO.

The minister quoted a February 3 order of the Central Information Commission which directed the competent authorities in the PMO to inquire into this matter and to ensure that these records were retrieved or traced, wherever they might be, and should be preserved appropriately for citizens to access.

"Following the observation made by the Central Information Commissioner, a thorough search was made to retrieve/trace records of correspondence between the then Prime Minister and the President of India relating to proclamation of emergency. However, no such records were found in the PMO," the minister said.

The Commission in its order had observed that the records relating to such an important event in the history of post-independent India should be clearly preserved for future and cannot be allowed to get lost in the labyrinth of government offices, the minister said.

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