KOLKATA: The Mukherjee Commission probing the alleged disappearance of Subash Chandra Bose has failed to find any document in the State archives in Russia pertaining to claims that he had stayed in the Soviet Union after 1945.

The term of the commission, set up by the Union Home Ministry in May 1999 to probe whether Netaji had died in the Taiwan air crash, and if not where he might have subsequently disappeared, will end in November. Its last hearing was held here on Thursday.

It had been granted an extension of six months to enable it and deponents to visit Russia to ascertain through documentary evidence whether Netaji had visited the Soviet Union and to verify claims that he had been imprisoned in a concentration camp in Siberia.

Justice Manoj Mukherjee, chairman of the one-man Commission, accompanied by deponents, including Subrata Bose, Netaji's nephew, visited the archives in Moscow, Omesk, St. Petersburg and Irkhust in Siberia in search of documents that might throw light on the theory that Netaji had been to the country after the alleged air crash at Taihoku.

"We were not able to either confirm or rule out Netaji's visit to that country, as there was no documentary evidence... ," Mr. Bose told The Hindu .

"It is disappointing that the Commission was not able to come up with documents either supporting or opposing the theory of Netaji's post-1945 visit to Russia. The success of our visit had largely depended on the co-operation of both the Centre and the Russian Government in the de-classification of any relevant document that might be in the archives of what was formerly the KGB. That co-operation was found wanting," Mr. Bose said.

"The Federal Security Bureau [set up after the KGB was wound up], we were informed, would not make any disclosure of its classified documents unless a request was made by the Centre to the Russian Government," K Bhattacharjee, another deponent and counsel of the All-India Forward Bloc, said.

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