PHC restrains KP from proceeding with PGMI dissolution

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday restrained the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government from proceeding with dissolution of the Post-Graduate Medical Institution (PGMI) and sought reply before the next hearing.

A two-member bench comprising Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth issued the status quo order in the writ petition filed by Pakistan Medical Association through its provincial president Dr Hussain Ahmad Haroon against dissolution of the PGMI.

The bench also issued notice to Secretary Health and Services Department, provincial government through chief secretary, Pakistan Medical and Dental Council through its secretary and College of Physician and Surgeons. They were directed to submit a reply before February 17, the next hearing into the case.

During the hearing, the petitioner’s lawyer Mohibullah Kakakhel submitted before the bench that the PGMI is the only institute in the KP for providing postgraduate education to the doctors about FCPS for four years, various diplomas and masters degrees for which the Khyber Medical University (KMU) is the degree awarding body.

The PHC chief justice observed that institutions are being built, but being dissolved here. “This is a single institute for doctors specialization in the province, which is going to be dissolved,” he remarked.

“The PGMI is being dissolved with malafide intentions and political motives, especially those of the KP chief minister and businessmen from the province and Punjab, who will take over everything belonging to PGMI,” the petitioner’s claimed in the petition.

It said that all the other provinces of the country have similar PGMI and the Army had also established another postgraduate institute in the country. He said that first the provincial government in the newly introduced Medical Teaching Institutions Act, 2015 ensured existence and progress of the PGMI. However, he said the provincial government with malafide intentions drafted the impugned MTI Reforms Act wherein complete dissolution of the PGMI was proposed.