KARACHI, Aug 13: A member of the National Assembly belonging to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was granted protective bail on Monday in the ephedrine quota case by the Sindh High Court.

A single bench headed by Justice Maqbool Baqar gave Muhammad Hanif Abbasi, the PML-N MNA, pre-arrest bail in the sum of Rs500,000 and surety bonds in the amount to the satisfaction of the Nazir of the court till Sept 7.

The PML-N lawmaker appeared in court along with his counsel, Advocate Shaukat Hayat, and moved his application seeking bail before arrest.

He was booked by the Anti-Narcotics Force, Rawalpinidi, on July 21, 2012 in FIR No. 41/2012 under Sections 9 (c), 15, 16 of the Control of Narcotics Substance Act, 1997.

It was alleged that the federal health ministry allotted a quota of ephedrine to different pharmaceutical companies in huge quantities apart from the routine quota. Different companies which did not use this chemical earlier also obtained the ephedrine quota.

According to the FIR, in all 99 companies were allotted quota and of them 28 were involved in the scam. It was alleged that none of the involved companies had got allocated any quota of ephedrine during the past five years and used it.

The FIR said Mr Abbasi’s firm, Gray’s Pharmaceutical, was allotted a quota of 500 kilograms and it was later misused by the firm, which did not manufacture the required medicine.The firm allegedly made only samples of the medicine and maintained a fake sale record, while the remaining quantity of the chemical was sold out to smugglers.

Mr Abbasi’s counsel submitted that the applicant duly joined the investigation and got his and other employees’ statements recorded to the entire satisfaction of the investigation authority.

Advocate Hayat stated that the applicant was in Karachi to take care of his business affairs and he learnt that an FIR was registered by the ANF against him.

He said that the ANF personnel were raiding his house and factory in Rawalpindi for his arrest with mala fide intentions and ulterior motives.

The counsel submitted that his client was implicated in the case due to vendetta and grudge of his political rival Shaikh Rasheed, who manoeuvred and influenced the ANF to book him in the case.

He sought pre-arrest bail for Mr Abbasi and prayed to the court to grant him at least eight weeks’ time to surrender either before the trial court or the respective high court for his bail in the case.

The court ordered: “Without touching the merits of the case, the applicant is granted protective bail up to 7-9-2012, to enable him to surrender before the court having jurisdiction in the matter, subject to his furnishing surety in the sum of Rs500,000 and surety bonds in the like amount to the satisfaction of the Nazir of this court. The protective bail, hereby granted, shall cease to have effect on 7-9-2012 after court hours or on any earlier date when the applicant may surrender before the court having jurisdiction in the matter”.