PMC defends centralised medical admission test before SHC

Defending the medical and dental college admission test (MDCAT), the Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) has informed the Sindh High Court (SHC) that the medical test is essential for ensuring a level playing field for all the students across Pakistan while deciding their merit for private and public medical colleges.

Filing comments on petitions with regard to vires of the Section 18 of the Pakistan Medical Commission Act, 2020, under which a national medical authority was constituted to conduct medical and dental colleges and universities admission tests anywhere in the country, the PMC stated that higher and education was not a provincial subject as the same were not devolved to them under the 18th amendment.

The PMC submitted that if each province wanted to have its own standards and regulators, no one in the world would recognise a degree or licence from Pakistan as there would be no uniform methodology to verify the same.

The PMC submitted that the primary issue was producing doctors of quality as all the citizens of Pakistan had the fundamental right to be provided health care and every citizen had the right to seek admission to a private college anywhere in Pakistan and Sindh could not curtail such right.

The PMC said that its council had not stopped the provincial admission committee from taking any entrance exam for medical and dental colleges and universities, in case the province wanted that as part of its additional criteria in addition to the MDCAT for admissions to public medical colleges.

On the promulgation of the PMC Ordinance, the PMC submitted that the petitioners’ contention against the ordinance was unjustified as Sindh had not objected on identical grounds when the PMDC Ordinance 1962 was repealed after the passage of the 18th amendment. The high court was requested to dismiss the petition as non-maintainable.

A counsel for the PMC filed the statement along with some documents on the analogy that certain developments were made after the filing of reply with regard to the preparation of syllabus and announcement of date with a sample paper, and it was necessary to bring on record these latest developments.

A federal law officer submitted that since the question of the law was involved in the matter and vires of the ordinance was challenged, he would argue on the question of law and file his reply on the written statement submitted by the ministry of national health services.

A division bench of the SHC headed by Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar observed that law should be made without any ambiguity so that students may not suffer. The court directed the counsel to advance their arguments in light of the PMC’s comments and adjourned the hearing till October 28.