The Lahore High Court on Monday set aside admission regulations-2019 and directed the University of Health Sciences (UHS) to make admissions as per previous regulations of 2018.

The court allowed several petitions and declared the impugned regulations namely MBBS/BDS (admissions, house job and internship) regulations 2019 were ultra vires to the Constitution.

The petitioner Maleeha Syed and others having dual nationality had challenged the new regulation for being discriminatory and contrary to their fundamental rights. The petitioners' counsel argued that the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) introduced amendments in the previous regulation through its ordinance promulgated in 2019 changing the basic criteria of admission for overseas Pakistani in particular.

They said the petitioners passed their O&A levels examination in Pakistan, however, later acquired dual nationality of different countries. They said the previous regulation gave due weight to performance of students in O&A levels or in regular national scheme of secondary school & higher secondary education.

The counsel pointed out that definition of dual national holder, as per previous regulations, was a Pakistani citizen holding dual nationality with valid domicile of Punjab, with pre-medical equivalent examination either from abroad or Pakistan, and having passed SAT-II or MCAT.

However, they said, the PMDC through impugned ordinance changed the regulations and criteria for the admission for dual national candidates excluding result of O-level or matriculation in calculation of merit for session 2019-20.

The quota given to the dual nationals having better foreign qualification forming an intelligible class for the purpose of computing merit for admission was also abolished under the impugned new regulations, they added.

The counsel argued that the PMDC unlawfully amended the regulations through an ordinance that was not approved by the parliament. They further argued that the impugned regulations could not be applied on candidates who either already taken admissions or completed their matriculation/O level before the amendments.

They prayed to the court to strike down the impugned regulations of 2019 for being unconstitutional and order the respondents to apply to previous regulations on the petitioners for admission in MBBS and BDS.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019