New Delhi, July 12: A row over the narrative of the 1999 Kargil war is set to get murkier with the army today saying it will appeal against an order to rewrite its history after the Armed Forces Tribunal held that it had wronged a gallant officer, Brigadier Devinder Singh.

In an unparalleled judgment in May this year, the Armed Forces Tribunal said the official accounts of the Kargil war should be rewritten because some generals distorted the records.

Army headquarters sources said here today that since the AFT directions in May, the army had delved into the classified internal accounts of the war. After studying the documents for two months, the army said, it had found new evidence that would now be presented to the tribunal.

Under the rules, the army can either appeal to the Supreme Court or seek a review in the same court.

With the new evidence to back it up, the army will seek a review of the AFT directions from the same court that asked for suitably modifying two paragraphs in the “After Action Report” and of one paragraph in the official history in “Operation Vijay — An Account of the War in Kargil (volume III)”.

In deciding to seek a review, army headquarters has concluded that it should support the contentions of the commander of the Srinagar-headquartered 15 corps, Lt General Kishan Pal, who Brigadier Devinder Singh had accused of bias, in the war that waged in the Kargil heights 11 years back.

Army headquarters sources said the appeal for the review would be filed in the Armed Forces Tribunal shortly.

Rewriting the official army account of the war is fraught with possibilities of even more controversies because at least three other officers who served in the Kargil war — Brigadier Surinder Singh who was dismissed during the hostilities as the commander of the Kargil-based 121 brigade among them — had complained that their roles were either undermined or that their warnings were not heeded by superior officers.

The new evidence on Brigadier Devinder’s case, the sources said, establishes that there were two flanks in the Batalik sector where Brigadier Devinder Singh was commanding the 70 Infantry Brigade. But in the middle of the war, the eastern flank was under the charge of Brigadier Duggal for seven days.

In his contention before the tribunal that was accepted, Brigadier Devinder Singh produced documents and statements from his immediate superior, Major General V.S. Budhwar who was the commander of the Leh-based 3 Infantry Division, to that showed that he was in complete command and control. Brigadier D.S. Duggal was sent to Batalik for about three days to set up a logistics base in support of the operations that Brigadier Devinder Singh was commanding.

Army headquarters sources now say that a separate headquarters was established in the eastern flank of the sector and Brigadier Duggal was in command of it for not three but for seven days. This shaped the events in the sector that ultimately led to the eviction of or withdrawal by the Pakistan-based intruders.

Such evidence — that there was a separate Brigade headquarters — in the same sector, runs contrary to Brigadier Devinder Singh’s claim that he was completely in charge of the operations. Even the army chief at the time of the Kargil war, General V.S. Malik, said after the tribunal judgement in May that he had flown down to Batalik to congratulate Brigadier Devinder.

Asked for his reaction after the army decided to seek a review of the AFT judgement, Brigadier Devinder Singh, who was not in Delhi where he is based, said on the phone: “I am yet to see the documents and learn of what the army is doing. But my credentials are clear. The army chief (General V.S. Malik) had himself said so.”

In the run-up to the war, Brigadier Devinder Singh had also predicted the pattern of intrusions in a table-top exercise. But he had arguments and differences with senior officers, including Lt General Kishan Pal, who wrote or vetted his annual confidential and battle performance reports.

Brigadier Devinder says that adverse remarks and non-acknowledgement of his role in the war cost him not only a gallantry medal also a promotion to the rank of major general. He is now retired and works for a private aviation company.

Army headquarters sources, however, claim that Brigadier Duggal, deputy commander of the 3 Infantry Division, was sent to Batalik because “there wasn’t adequate progress in the sector”. They also claim that Brigadier Devinder Singh was not recommended for a Mahavir Chakra medal.

Also, he got five opportunities before selection boards for the rank of major general “but he was rated on the basis of his overall profile and comparative batch merit”.

Eleven years after the war that peaked between May and July 1999, the issues of command and control, the lapses that allowed the intrusions into Indian territory and the role of superior officers are still hotly debated in military and strategic communities.

While the BJP-led NDA government that was swept to power in October 1999 celebrated the “victory” in the war with much fanfare, frontline leaders of the Congress-UPA governments have not associated with it directly and even kept away from the 10th anniversary celebrations last year.

Beyond the litigation in the Armed Forces Tribunal, a suspicion still endures that a clutch of generals who were close to their political masters allowed the intrusions to snowball into a war and then manufactured a victory that came about with US pressure.