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Friday March 29, 2024

Senior professors, doctors from Karachi boycott ‘illegal’ CPSP polls

By M. Waqar Bhatti
February 24, 2019

Senior medical professors and doctors from different medical institutions in Karachi boycotted the elections of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan (CPSP) on Saturday, which were held all over the country, alleging that the polls were illegal as they were held in violation of the laws of the medical institution.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan (CPSP) is a public regulatory college in Pakistan. Established in 1962 by a special act of the parliament of Pakistan to oversee the postgraduate medical education and professional development, it offers certifications following postgraduate training in specialties of medicine, surgery and dentistry.

As many as 52 medical professors and senior doctors had filed their nomination papers in Pakistan to contest elections to 20 seats of the CPSP council and faculties for the session 2019-2023.

“The CPSP elections being held today in Karachi and other provincial capitals are in violation of CPSP bylaws while a court in Quetta has also issued a stay order against these polls. Unfortunately, the election commission holding the polls is not abiding by the court order,” Prof Naqibullah Achakzai, one of the candidates for the CPSP Council, told a news conference at the Karachi Press Club (KPC).

Accompanied by the chairman of the Sindh Health Care Commission and former Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) leader Prof Tipu Sultan, and other candidates, Prof Achakzai said they had conveyed the stay order from Quetta’s court to the commission, but it continued with the election process, which amounted to contempt of court.

Other candidates including Prof Khawar Saeed Jamali, pro-vice chancellor of the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS), Karachi, Dr Rizwan Azmi, Dr Shahjahan Katpar and Dr Atta-ur-Rehman and others also boycotted the CPSP polls, saying thousands of CPSP fellows who were potential voters were denied their right of franchise.

They said the elections were supposed to be held in April 2019, but in violation of the rules, the election commission announced the schedule earlier. They said that even the schedule was given by the CPSP council, which, they described as an illegal act.

They said there were around 22,800 voters but only over 8,000 of them were disallowed to cast their votes so that the ruling elite of the CPSP could be re-elected. They alleged that senior medical practitioners and educationists in Pakistan were opposing these “sham elections”.

The protesting professors and medical practitioners urged the apex court to take notice of the irregularity in the election process of the most respectable medical educational institution of Pakistan and also demanded of the federal government to intervene to prevent this prestigious institution from collapse.

Two provincial high courts – the Lahore High Court and the Peshawar High Court -- as well as the Bahawalpur Bench of the LHC had rejected pleas by several contesting candidates against the CPSP elections, ruling that elections were being held as per rules.