The Army has moved the Supreme Court challenging an order of the Armed Forces Tribunal directing it to change its official Kargil War history to correct the “bias” shown against a Brigadier.
“We have approached the SC against the Tribunal order in May last year directing us to change the official Kargil War history,” Army officials said here.
The Tribunal had on May 27, 2010 indicted Lt Gen Kishan Pal, 15 Corps Commander during the war, saying he had “falsified Kargil War reports and showed bias” towards Brig Devindar Singh, who was commanding the 70 Infantry Brigade under his overall command.In September last year, the Army had filed a review petition against the verdict in the Tribunal but it was dismissed by the Bench saying that the Army should be “thankful” as the previous verdict could have been “worse” as decorations of Lt Gen Kishan Pal could have also been withdrawn.
In its order, the Tribunal had asked the Army to expunge Singh’s Annual Confidential Report(ACR) written by Lt Gen Pal and directed it to correct certain records of the Kargil conflict. Singh had moved the Delhi High Court in 2006, complaining that his role as leader of the 70 Infantry Brigade in the Batalik Sector had been underplayed and this had cost him a war medal and promotions.The Tribunal had accepted his contention that his contribution had been incorrectly represented by Lt Gen Kishan Pal and held that “the ACRs were not written in an objective and unbiased manner”.
In view of the adverse ACR by Lt Gen Pal, Brigadier Singh could not be promoted to the rank of Major General.Among the records which the Tribunal had wanted to be corrected was a paragraph in the After Action Report of the war and two other paragraphs of the Kargil War account.
After the Army filed the review petition, Singh also filed a plea seeking changes in the Kargil Review Committee report to absolve him and his unit of the “blame” for intrusion by Pakistani Army into Indian territory before the war started.
-via IBN Live News
