KARACHI, Sept 5: Ahmed Ali Riaz Malik, a son of real estate tycoon Malik Riaz Hussain, was on Wednesday given protective bail for a month in a Bahria Town corruption case by the Sindh High Court.

A single-judge bench headed by Justice Nisar Ahmed Shaikh gave him protective bail without touching on the merits of the case registered in 2009 by the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE), Rawalpindi.

The real estate tycoon earlier on July 19 was granted bail in the same case after an anti-corruption judge of Rawalpindi had issued a non-bailable warrant for his arrest.

On Monday his son appeared before the SHC along with his counsel, Advocate Shaukat Hiyat, and moved his application for protective bail in the case.

The bench gave Mr Malik bail in the sum of Rs1 million and directed him to appear before the trial court within a month.

Counsel Hiyat contended that his client’s father was given bail in the same case and the son was on a better footing and was also entitled to the same relief.

He argued that his client was not named initially in the FIR registered by the ACE and he was not shown as an accused in the first charge-sheet submitted by the investigation agency in October 2011 in the trial court.

He said that six accused persons — Adnan B. Kiyani, sub-tehsildar, Mohammed Hussain, Nazir Hussain, Rizwan Iqbal (patwari), retired Col Akhtar Saeed and Mohammed Iqbal — were charge-sheeted for selling 1,411 kanals to Bahria Town by forgery in fictitious names.

However, he stated, later the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court directed the ACE to re-investigate the case on the application of one of the accused persons and subsequently 16 people, including Mr Malik, were shown accused in the charge-sheet.

He prayed to the court to grant Mr Malik protective bail for eight weeks so that he could surrender himself before the trial court for the purpose of obtaining bail and engage lawyers for his defence in the case.

However, the court granted him protective bail for one month.