ISLAMABAD - Former Army Chief General (r) Mirza Aslam Beg on Wednesday filed a review petition against the SC judgment in Asghar Khan case, seeking deletion of findings and observations made against him and contending that he was denied his fundamental right to a fair trial.The Supreme Court in its October 19 judgment stated, “Former President of Pakistan late Ghulam Ishaq Khan, ex-COAS General (r) Aslam Beg, and ISI ex-DG General (r) Asad Durrani acted in violation of the constitution by facilitating a group of politicians and political parties.”It further said that the acts of Aslam Beg and Asad Durrani had brought a bad name to Pakistan and its Armed Forces as well as secret agencies, and belittled them in the eyes of the nation. The court in that verdict directed the federal government to take necessary legal steps against them despite their retirement from service.Beg has filed the review petition through Barrister Syed Ali Zafar under article 188 of the constitution read with Order XXVI of Supreme Court Rules 1980. He contended that the findings and observations made against him by the court were incorrect and his fundamental right to a fair trial as enshrined in article 10A of the constitution and right to due process of law has been infringed. He also questioned the principle that “no one is to follow any unlawful orders” and argued that “if this legal proposition is allowed to remain worded in such a vague manner then this will lead to mayhem in the armed forces of Pakistan and the bureaucracy. The government will not be able to run and there will be anarchy.The petition further says that an army officer is bound to obey the orders of his superior and must act on the assumption that the command by his senior is lawful even at the risk of losing his life. “It is not possible for an army officer to start asking his superior officer to explain the legality of the command.”He submitted that the principle of “refusing to obey a superior’s order” is limited to those extreme cases where an instruction is patently and manifestly unlawful on the face of record and perpetuates a criminal offence or an offence against humanity. Gen (r) Beg argued that in this case, as held by the court itself, there is no express prohibition in the constitution nor in the President’s oath in respect of his involvement in politics and to come to a conclusion that the President could not maintain a political cell, the court had to carry out an elaborate interpretation of the constitutional provision and rely on conventions and jurisprudence.Accordingly, it is only after this judgment that for the future the political role of the President has been defined. Prior to this judgment it would be unreasonable to expect anyone let alone the COAS to question the President’s orders or his political role, the petition said. Even the Sindh High Court Bar Association’s case, which had decided that taking oath under the PCO is unlawful only applies for the future and does not affect the judges, who took oaths before this case, it added.Beg’s counsel Barrister Zafar contended that the only allegation against his client contained in a three lines of Lt-Gen (r) Durrani’s affidavit in which he has alleged that he had received instructions from Gen Beg to “provide logistic support for disbursement of funds”.It has been submitted that although this statement of Durrani was vehemently denied by Gen (r) Beg that he neither received any instructions from the President nor gave any instructions to Durrani, yet the Supreme Court believed the version of Durrani as gospel truth and rejected the affidavit of Beg. Only President Ghulam Ishaq Khan could have confirmed the actual facts. In absence of such confirmation or any other documentary proof the court could not have given any finding against Gen (r) Beg, the petition stated.It said that a person is innocent until proven guilty and no civil or criminal liability can be established without a fair trial, which is a fundamental right under article 10A. It is submitted that since Asad Durrani and Yunus Habib have only made oral allegations without documentary proof and no trial to determine the truth of these allegations has taken place in accordance with law, serious contravention of the due process and article 10A has taken place.The review petition has also challenged the finding of the court that ex-COAS was involved in “rigging of elections”. It contended that “whether the elections were rigged or not can only be determined by proving that payments were made to political parties/politicians and as till to-date no trial has taken place against any of the alleged politicians, the court could not have concluded that any rigging had taken place”.Gen (r) Beg argued that although he was informed that the president had instructed ISI DG to disburse funds for election purposes, yet it was beyond his jurisdiction to stop the president from any such action as that would have amounted to taking extra-constitutional measures. He questioned whether as an army chief he could have acted against the president in a situation where in his opinion the president’s orders were unlawful. He argued that in case this jurisdiction is given to army chief, this would mean that the president is subservient to the army chief, which is not the case.