Government panel to decide tomorrow on making more Netaji files public

Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth will head a government panel that is likely to decide on Thursday on whether to declassify more files on Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

Seth will head an inter-ministerial committee that will review the Official Secrets Act in connection with the Netaji files.

A rule says files can be declassified after 30 years.

There are about 58 Bose-related files in the Prime Minister's Office and about 25 with the External Affairs Ministry.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday met Subhas Chandra Bose's grand-nephew Surya Kumar Bose, who said later that he had asked for the declassification of all secret files related to the freedom fighter.

The prime minister, he said, had told him that he would look into it seriously and then decide.

"PM said he will try his best to open the files up as he hasn't seen the files himself and can't judge the content. It was an honest answer, he at least promised to look into it and try his best to do something about it. I am hopeful," Mr.Bose said.

The matter is making headlines in the wake of declassified intelligence documents saying that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru ordered a surveillance of Netaji's two homes and his relatives between 1948 and 1968.