MDCAT paper was not leaked, Dow University tells high court

The Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) administration has told the Sindh High Court (SHC) that it has no evidence with regard to leakage of question paper of the Medical and Dental College Admissions Test (MDCAT).

Filing comments on petitions against alleged mismanagement and non-transparency in the recent MDCAT, the DUHS said it conducted the test with integrity and fairness, and the paper was not leaked before the test.

The university said the conduct of the DUHS was in accordance with the law and no violation of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) rules had been made. The SHC was told that the petitioners were trying to delay the process of MBBS and BDS admissions by making baseless allegations.

The PMDC submitted that medical colleges and universities had to complete the admissions process within the stipulated time and no concrete evidence with regard to the mismanagement in the MDCAT had been received.

Some medical students also became intervenors in the case submitting that due to delay in the announcement of the MDCAT results, they were unable to apply in medical colleges of foreign countries and other provinces. A counsel for the respondents sought urgency in the matter submitting that the cut-off date for the issuance of the merit list for government medical colleges was December 15, which had lapsed, whereas the cut-off date for the issuance of the merit list for private medical colleges was January 15.

A division bench of the SHC headed by Chief Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi after taking comments of the respondents on record adjourned the matter till December 26 observing that the matter would be heard and decided on the next hearing.

The high court also continued the interim order restraining the PMDC and others from proceeding further regarding the MDCAT conducted by the DUHS until further orders.

The petitioners claimed that when the MDCAT 2023-24 was re-conducted on November 19 by the DUHS, the test paper was leaked again and sold for Rs1.1 million the night before.

They expressed surprise that the question paper was identical to that of the previous MDCAT held on September 10, and thus the test had once again become controversial. They said that the en masse unfair means in the MDCAT had shattered the confidence of the public in the examination system.

The counsel for the petitioners argued that according to the unofficial results circulating on social media, a significant number of students had scored 200 out of 200 marks for the first time, which indicated that the test had been compromised.

They contended that this fact alone strongly suggested that those students might have accessed the test paper a day before the exams, raising serious concerns about the fairness and integrity of the test.

They made serious allegations against the MDCAT and the DUHS, and requested the high court to restrain the respondents from finalising the list of successful candidates and continuing with the admissions process for the session 2023-24.