No destruction of link with history: Rajnath on files issue

Seeking to dispel the apprehension that there could have been tinkering with history through the recent weeding out of old government files, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday said that the Bhartiya Janata Party “understands history’’ and will never negate the valuable contribution of Mahatma Gandhi in the country’s freedom struggle. “The files to be weeded out were reviewed and categorised by concerned section officers in three categories, including the important ones that needed to be kept in safe custody in micro-films; files that needed to be kept historically safe and files that must be preserved for 10 years.’’ Besides historic files that are older than 25 years, the files that are normally preserved relate to policy, policy-related decisions, important court cases, departments or institutions that are set up, sensitive matters, issues of public importance, international events that are inspirational and so on. To Mr. Yechury’s charge that last week Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had refuted that any files were destroyed, Mr. Singh said his colleague was referring to any files relating to Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. "Dissatisfied" with Mr. Singh’s statement last Friday informing the house about destruction of 11,100 Home Ministry files, most opposition members asked the government to table in Parliament the details of the files destroyed.