: India’s Smile, a Kolkata-based NGO, which filed a PIL in the Calcutta High Court seeking declassification of documents relating to Netaji’'s disappearance, will file a supplementary petition questioning the National Security Council’s (NSC) instruction to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to take “appropriate action” in the wake of the PIL. In the PIL, taken up by the Calcutta High Court on December 9 last year, the NGO has also demanded the declassification of files pertaining to the “treasury” of the Indian National Army. The supplementary to the PIL will be filed ‘by the end of January’, the NGO activists said.
“In the supplementary PIL, we will point out to the Calcutta High Court that the NSC cannot issue such an instruction to the MHA since the latter also is a respondent in the case,” the key functionary of India’s Smile, Rajeev Sarkar told The Hindu .
The NSC is a central organisation headed by the Prime Minister with the National Security Adviser as its Secretary. It oversees political, energy and security issues of strategic concern. More than two dozen Central and State government offices have been instructed by the High Court to respond to the PIL filed by the Kolkata-based NGO.
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“Affidavits-in-opposition to be filed within two weeks after Christmas vacation,” said the High Court order. Following this, the NSC wrote to the MHA on December 29, 2014.
“Ministry of Home Affairs is requested to take necessary action in the matter accordingly,” wrote the NSC.
India’s Smile has also pleaded before the High Court to set up a Judicial Commission to probe the actual number of files pertaining to Netaji in possession of the Centre and in what condition those files are at present, said Mr. Banerjee.
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Recently, in a separate development, a section of Netaji’s family members met Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leaders and sought its intervention to declassify disappearance of related files.
The Prime Minister’s Office had earlier refused to declassify the files.