Ogra chairman appointment illegal: SC

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Friday struck down the appointment of Tauqir Sadiq as Chairman Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) declaring the appointment as illegal and void ab initio.

The bench headed by Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan announced the judgement reserved earlier and also directed Tauqir Sadiq to return all the salary and privileges drawn from the public exchequer in the course of his service as Chairman of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority.

Tauqir Sadiq was appointed as Chairman OGRA by the Federal Government in July 2009. The apex court held this on Friday while announcing its verdict in a constitutional petition filed by Muhammad Yasin, an OGRA employee challenging Tauqir Sadiq's appointment.

The unanimous judgment was passed by a three-member bench comprising Justice Shakirullah Jan, Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain. Justice Khawaja, who authored the judgment, recorded the reasons for the Court's decision in detail.

The foremost reason given was that this appointment violated the criteria expressly laid down in section 3(4) of the OGRA Ordinance, 2002. The said section commands that the head of this independent institution must be a person who is an eminent professional of "known competence and integrity".

He (Sadiq) was facing a number of corruption allegations, and who purports to have an LLM degree from a `fake degree-granting' institution, the American University in London, was found falling short of the required standard. (APP)