6. Evidence of Certain Witnesses (...cont'd)

6.57 It has been mentioned in Chapter Five that on 30-6-1956, Suresh Chandra Bose signed a Note described as Points Agreed to. This note extends over three pages and was prepared in quintuplicate. Suresh Chandra Bose signed this document, and made an addition in his own hand on the first page. This addition can be clearly observed in the photostat copy of the document attached to this report. He has tried to explain this away in his Dissentient Report at page 178 in the following manner:

"The next point regarding a note made by me for my personal use on 30-6- 1956, in which I recorded the suggestion made by all three of us for the preparation of my draft report. Some of the highest officials of the land, having failed in all other ways to persuade me to sign the report of my colleagues and thereby made it a unanimous one, fell back on this note of mine as a trump card and tried their best to compel me to sign my colleagues' report, alleging that, I had signed that note, which contained a statement that said that after examining the witnesses, I was convinced that Netaji was dead...This note of mine has been printed at Pages 70 and 71 of the Report of my colleagues, and as it contained the suggestions of all three of us, some of those suggestions may have been of the nature of findings, but they were definitely not 'points agreed to.'

6.58 The reading of the document however, completely falsifies the explanation set out above. In the course of his statement before the Commission, Suresh Chandra Bose said nothing whatsoever about this document and gave no explanation of how he came to sign it. It is quite clear that this note was not prepared for the personal use of Suresh Chandra Bose as he says in his Dissentient Report, because it was prepared in quintuplicate and each copy was signed by each of the three members of that Committee. Nor is it correct to say that Suresh Chandra Bose was to draw up the draft report because at the end of the document it is clearly stated that the draft was to be prepared by Shri S. N. Maitra. It is clear that after listening to all the evidence produced before that Committee, Suresh Chandra Bose gave his imprimatur to the unanimous findings of all three members; but then he changed his mind. This volte face was a subsequent attitude, dictated by something that can only be guessed at or conjectured, but which must have been in the nature of some external influence or pressure exercised upon him for reasons that bore no relation to a desire to seek the truth. Suresh Chandra Bose had not discovered any further evidence after 30-6- 1956 which made him change his mind. He does not say that a researching of his conscience or a closer re-examination of the evidence led him to the conclusion that he had erred in concurring with his colleagues. So it must have been at the persuasion or intimidation of someone that he turned his back upon Messrs. Shah Nawaz Khan and Maitra and left them in anger. Thereafter, he complained bitterly of the treatment meted out to him in the matter of residential accommodation at Delhi, and of being subjected to what he terms "machination on the part of the highest officials of our Government." This was a feeble and wholly unconvincing attempt to justify his conduct in first concurring with the findings of his colleagues and then publishing a Dissentient Report.

6.61 The very fact that Netaji's own brother was selected to sit on the Committee proves the bona fides of Prime Minister Nehru. It is impossible to believe that Nehru expected Suresh Chandra Bose to pervert the truth against his own conscience. The fact of the matter is that it was Suresh Chandra Bose who later, under pressure or intimidation, resiled from the stand he had taken when he subscribed to the principal agreed points, set out in the document which he had carefully studied and signed, after adding a clause in his own hand. If Suresh Chandra Bose thought that Nehru was making a tool of him why did he agree to serve on the Committee, why did he not resign at once and why did he associate himself with that he believed would be a spurious enquiry. The right and honourable thing for him to do, when he was offered the allurement of a post of Governorship, was to resign. In conclusion I may draw attention to a clear misstatement made by Suresh Chandra Bose in his deposition before the Commission (vide page 754) of Volume II):

Both Takahashi and Yamamoto did state before the Shah Nawaz Khan Committee that there was an air crash and Suresh Chandra Bose himself admitted this fact in his Dissentient Report (See page 103 bottom and page 106-107 of the printed Dissentient Report).