Punjab Study

MUZAFFARABAD, Jan 25: Azad Jammu and Kashmir High Court (AJKHC) on Tuesday dismissed a petition filed by five students challenging enforcement of quota system in admission to two public sector medical colleges.

“As the petitioners are not aggrieved, the petition has no merit and stands dismissed,” held the high court’s full bench comprising Chief Justice Ghulam Mustafa Mughal, Justice Chaudhry Munir Hussain and Justice M. Tabassum Aftab Alvi in its unanimous decision.

However, the bench added, “All other points raised by the petitioners and respondents are left open and shall be decided in a proper case.”

The decision, which was announced at about 2:15pm, made the petitioners upset who said they would challenge it in the AJK Supreme Court because it did not address the core issue.

The AJK government, it may be recalled, invited applications from pre-medical students, through an advertisement published on Dec 25 last year, for admissions on open merit against 150 seats in the two medical colleges in Mirpur and Muzaffarabad.

However, on Jan 13, the government issued a notification whereby these seats were allocated to 10 AJK districts and Kashmiri refugees settled in Pakistan on the basis of quota system.

The notification was challenged in the AJKHC by five female students namely Farwa Batool, Fatima Abdullah, Komal Manzoor, Ujyara Maryam and Qurat ul Ain, “for being mala-fide, transgression of the conditions of the (Dec 25) advertisement and the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) Ordinance, 1962 as well as a Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) judgment of 2001.”

The petitioners maintained that the respondents were not vested with any authority to formulate and enforce admission policy in contravention of the PMDC’s regulations and approved criteria for admissions.

Among other things, the government told the court that the merit of the candidates on the basis of Jan 13 notification had been determined and therefore vested rights had been accrued in their favour.Dawn.