PHC wonders if medical colleges allowed to become commercial entities.

PESHAWAR -- The Peshawar High Court has taken notice of reported monetary demands made by private sector colleges in the province and asked the advocate general to appear before it and suggest how to stop medical education from becoming a commercial activity.

A bench consisting of Chief Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan and Justice Mohammad Naeem Anwar fixed Mar 3 for the next hearing into the issue, observing that reports suggest that some medical colleges have practically put seats of medical course on sale, whereby millions of rupees are being charged from aspirants for the purpose.

It asked advocate general Shumail Ahmad Butt to attend the next hearing to suggest ways to prevent the medical education from becoming a commercial activity.

During the hearing, the bench questioned whether the Pakistan Medical Commission had given a freehand to the private colleges to become commercial entities.

Takes note of alleged donation demands for admission

It took notice of the issue while hearing a petition seeking orders for domicile restriction for admission to private sector medical and dental colleges in the province.

Petitioners Laiba Javed and 33 other students have sought several reliefs from the court related to the Admissions Regulations (Amended) 2020-21, which provides for the centralised admission policy for the public and private medical and dental colleges in the country.

The petitioners have requested the court to direct the provincial government to exercise its executive power to declare that only students of the province will be given admission to the local private medical and dental colleges on the basis of domicile and over all merit.

They also challenged Clause 18 of the regulations to the extent of 20 per cent interview marks for admission to private colleges requesting the court to declare it unconstitutional.

The petitioners also sought the court's orders for the government and PMC to give admission to students on the basis of the 'overall merit' and ensure that the restriction of 60 per cent passing marks in the MDCAT test don't block admission to the province's medical colleges.

Advocate Waseemuddin Khattak appeared for the petitioners and contended that the PMC had issued the Admission Regulations (Amended) 2020-21, whose Clause 16 declared that domicile restriction may be imposed by...