A writ petition filed in the Madras High Court Bench here has sought a directive to the Union Cabinet Secretary to make public the contents of 39 classified files on the mysterious disappearance of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in 1945.
V. Ramesh, a Madurai advocate, said in his petition that the mystery surrounding Netaji’s “death or disappearance” could be solved, and the nation would come to know the truth, only if these files were declassified by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). He said the PMO had recently refused to divulge the contents — in response to an application under the Right to Information Act — under the pretext that the disclosure might affect relations with foreign countries. He wondered how the BJP government could come out with various reasons for not declassifying the files, especially when Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh himself had demanded their declassification in January when he was in the Opposition.
In his affidavit, the petitioner hailed Netaji’s contribution to the freedom movement and said the former British Prime Minister, Clement Atlee, had admitted that patriots like Netaji had made the British rule untenable.
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The affidavit said there was an abundance of evidence to disprove the theories of Netaji having died in a plane crash in Taiwan or in any of the territories held by the Japanese, and therefore it was necessary to declassify the files. The case is expected to be listed before Justice M. Venugopal on Thursday.