A division bench of Lahore High Court on Tuesday rejected a request by University of Health Sciences (UHS) to vacate the stay against its Combined Merit List for admission to the medical colleges and deferred hearing by one day.
Lawyers of UHS, Pakistan Medical and Dental Council and the petitioner began brawling and quarrelling in the courtroom, disrupting the proceedings and annoying the court.
The court, warning the lawyers, observed “Should we close down the court if you want to decide the matter yourself?”
The bench comprising Justice Ch Shahid Saeed and Justice Malik Shahzad Ahmad Khan, reprimanding the parties, suspended the proceedings for a while. However the lawyers apologised to the court for their rough attitude and said they would observe the court’s decorum.
Before the eruption of a storm in the courtroom, the bench asked PMDC counsel Ch Muhammad Umair why there was no check on private medical colleges which were charging fee in lacs. The court also asked if the son or daughter of a poor man could afford to study in these private colleges and that had the PMDC fixed some quota in the medical colleges for the poor?
The court also rejected the request of UHS Counsel Arsalan Husan Syed to vacate the stay order granted on previous hearing against implementation of UHS’s merit list observing that proceedings in the case were almost complete. The situation took a bad turn when the petitioner’s counsel Azhar Siddique told the court that UHS’ counsel was lying.
The UHS counsel had said an LHC bench in a judgment in 2010 had set a standard process for admissions which the university was following together with PMDC rules of the business. PMDC counsel told the court that the FSc system had some defects so the entry test system was used as a standard measure.
Azhar said UHS counsel was lying to the court as in 2010 question of the FSc pass marks came before court and the question of giving more weightage to entry test marks over FSc marks had been raised for the first time.
The bench directed the counsel for the petitioner to complete his arguments on Wednesday (today), when the judgment would also be announced.
Lawyers brawl over entry test policy
