JOIN USThe Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on Friday handed over 33 secret files, relating to Subhash Chandra Bose, to the National Archives of India (NAI) for making them public on the birth anniversary of Netaji in January next year
The remaining 15 classified files on Netaji, which is in possession of the PMO, will also soon get clearance for their declassification and handed over to the NAI for making them public on January 23, 2016.
“The principal secretary to the prime minister, Nripendra Misra, today (on Friday) officially handed over the first set of files related to Netaji to the Director General, National Archives of India, setting the stage for their declassification beginning on January 23, 2016,” the PMO said in a statement here.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the Union Home Minister, which too have many secret files relating to Netaji in their custody, are working separately to give clearance for their declassification, it added.
Of the total classified files on Netaji, the MEA has 90 classified files in its custody while the Home Ministry has kept 3 files as classified and 9 as unclassified.
After a meeting with the relatives of Bose at his official residence here in October, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised that declassification and public release of the files relating to Netaji would begin on January 23, 2016, saying that his government did not believe in “constraining or strangulating history in any way”.
The government has been undertaking the process of due diligence stipulated.