Exactly 14 years to the date when the “Ram Janma Bhoomi — Babri Masjid structure” (as it is defined, officially) was destroyed, the office probing the demolition and the role of various leaders and government officials appears pretty much not there itself.

What was a sprawl until some five years ago - on the first floor of the prestigious Vigyan Bhawan Annexe in central Delhi — has now shrunk to a few nondescript rooms. The board that once announced this crucial Commission royally — “The Liberhan Ayodhya Commission of Inquiry” — lies in a room full of cobwebs and a few broken chairs.

The staff is kind enough to pull it out when told about the need for a photo. But the fifteen or twenty of the surviving staff of the Commission of Inquiry tell you that once the North East Development Board set up shop on their floor, and got the place whitewashed two months ago, they installed their own impressive brass nameplate and knocked out what was once there.

This place may well be called Commission Bhawan. It had the Jain Commission (probing Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination), the Subhash Chandra Bose Commission and the Nanavati Commission (looking into the Sikh Riots of 1984) operating from here. But they have all wound up and gone away.

Now it is just Liberhan, the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Commission and the buzzing Administrative Reforms Commission (headed by Veerappa Moily).

Staff has shrunk, and the roughly one-third staffers still remaining are very amused when we want to know how they spend their day. A nine-to-five routine seems to be all about merely “routine things, like paying our phone bills, making sure everyone gets salaries on time, composing a letter or arranging a certificate if someone needs one, and receiving occasional advocates.”

... contd.