Islamabad  -  The Islamabad High Court on Monday extended interim bail of anchorperson Dr Shahid Masood till November 23 in a petition seeking bail 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 that the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was victimizing him for being critical to the government.

However, no court proceedings could be held as Dr Shahid could not appear before the court due to his engagements in Lahore High Court. Khawar’s junior appeared before the court and submitted application seeking adjournment.

The court accepted the plea and deferred the proceedings till November 23 by extending Masood’s interim bail.

Earlier, special judge Kamran Basharat Mufti had turned down his pre-arrest bail on October 25. After the verdict, the FIA is making efforts to arrest Masood but his counsel has filed a 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 the agreement caused PTV 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.