ISLAMABAD - The Islamabad High Court Monday granted interim bail to anchorperson Dr Shahid Masood in PTV corruption case.

A single bench of IHC comprising Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani conducted hearing of the petition challenging the special judge central’s judgment of rejecting pre-arrest bail of Dr Shahid through his counsel Shah Khawar Advocate saying the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was victimising him for being critical to the government.

After hearing the petition, the court granted him interim bail till November 12 in this matter.

However, a brawl also occurred between Dr Shahid and reporter of a private TV channel and both of them exchanged harsh words as the former came out of the court. The brawl started when the reporter asked a question from the anchorperson about his flee from the court of special judge central Kamran Basharat Mufti who had rejected his pre-arrest bail.

The anchorperson snatched the phone from the reporter and deleted the footage from it. Later, he gave the phone back to the reporter on the intervention of the lawyers.

Earlier, special judge Kamran Basharat Mufti had turned down his pre-arrest bail on October 25. After this verdict, the FIA is making efforts for Masood’s arrest but his counsel has filed the petition before the IHC seeking his pre-arrest bail in the case related to alleged embezzlement in Pakistan Television (PTV) during his stint as the state-run PTV’s managing director and chairman.

The petitioner is allegedly involved in embezzlement of Rs37 million while acquiring the Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) media rights in 2008 for which an agreement was signed with a fake company, namely M/S ISS. The investigators in the case claimed that the amount had been released and it caused a loss of millions of dollars to PTV as the state-run television had failed to acquire the PCB’s media rights from 2008 to 2013.

According to the prosecution, Dr Shahid had allegedly signed an agreement with a fake company to negotiate with the PCB for grant of rights to PTV for coverage of matches played in Pakistan. It said that because of the agreement PTV had to face heavy financial losses.

In the petition seeking pre-bail arrest, the petitioner adopted that he was not nominated in the First Information Report (FIR) registered in this case.

He added that if he was arrested he would suffer an irreparable loss to his repute and health and requested the court to grant him bail till adjudication of the complaint filed against him by the FIA before the special judge central.