KARACHI, July 2: Ali Musa Gilani, son of former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, was granted on Monday protective transitory bail in the ephedrine case by the Sindh High Court.

Advocate Shazia Hanjrah, the counsel for Ali Musa, appeared before Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, who granted him protective bail for two weeks in the sum of Rs100,000.

He was booked by the Anti-Narcotics Force in 2010 for his alleged involvement in illegal allocation of ephedrine quota worth Rs7 billion to two pharmaceutical companies, Danas Pharmaceutical and Berlex Lab International.

Executives of the companies were also booked for illegally obtaining export quota of approximately 8,500 kg of ephedrine in collusion with top officials of the ministry of health and later selling it in local market.

The counsel submitted that her client, a sitting MNA, had been implicated in the case by the ANF to harass and humiliate him.

She said that Ali Musa was implicated after the filing of final charge-sheet and that initially he had not been nominated in the case registered in October last year.

The counsel submitted that the applicant apprehended his arrest and sought protective transitory bail so that he could join trial court’s proceedings.

The bench accepted the application without going into merits of the case and ordered that the concession of bail would cease to have force on expiry of two weeks or when the applicant surrendered himself before the trial court.

The court also ordered that the surety amount furnished by the applicant would stand forfeited if he failed to appear before the trial court.