ISLAMABAD: Yousuf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervez Ashraf, two former prime ministers belonging to the PPP, have been made accused in a reference relating to illegal appointment of former Oil & and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) chief Tauqeer Sadiq, and they will face the cases in an accountability court.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) approved on Wednesday the references about Rs82 billion Oil & Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) scam. The references may be filed in Islamabad on Thursday.

In a reference about corruption and irregularities in Ogra, the bureau removed the name of Mr Gilani, but added his and Raja Pervez Ashraf’s names in the reference relating to illegal appointment of Mr Tauqeer Sadiq in 2009. According to NAB spokesman Ramzan Sajid, a meeting of the executive board approved two references in the multi-billion Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) scam.

The first is about illegal appointment of Mr Saidq and the accused include Yousuf Raza Gilani, Raja Pervez Ashraf, Shaukat Durrani, Javed Nazir, Sikandar Hayat Mekan and Tauqeer Sadiq.

The spokesman said that the board also approved the second reference naming Tauqir Sadiq, Mansoor Muzaffar, Mir Kamal Fareed Bijrani, Jawad Jamil, Dewan Zia ur Rehman Farooqi, Abdur Rashid Lone, Zohair Siddique, Azeem Iqbal Siddique, Aqeel Karim Dhedhi, Syed Arsalan Iqbal, Mirza Mehmood Ahmed and Yousaf J. Ansari as the accused. He alleged that the accused were involved in corruption and corrupt practices. An interim reference had been filed in the accountability court in November 2012.

Earlier, NAB missed four deadlines fixed by the Supreme Court and accountability court for filing the reference. The last deadline was for Jan 17.

During interrogation of Ogra chief, NAB realised that it had quoted an ‘unrealistic’ recoverable amount to be received in the case as it could recover only around Rs1 billion from the accused, which is about 1.2 per cent of the amount mentioned in the scam.