Hearing a suo motu case involving a strike by Lahore’s young doctors against the suspension of their seniors on account of hundreds of deaths of heart patients due to spurious drugs, the Supreme Court on Friday directed the Punjab government to immediately withdraw the suspension notification of the senior doctors of Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) and hold a proper enquiry into the matter.
A three-member SC bench comprising Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani, Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Saqib Nisar directed the Punjab health secretary to resolve the issue and submit a report by February 20. The court said the case would be heard on February 20 in Lahore by a bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.
“The doctors, needless to say, come from a noble profession and we are sanguine, they would not leave their ailing patients unattended,” the court noted.
Appearing on notice, Punjab Advocate General Ashtar Ausaf Ali submitted that on account of several deaths of patients under treatment at PIC Lahore, the competent authority, that is the chief minister, suspended two doctors, a pharmacist and two others employees of the PIC. He said five PIC officials, who were suspended, included Medical Superintendent Dr Jaffer Saleem, Deputy Medical Superintendent Dr Syed Ali Hassan, Director Drug Testing Laboratory Abdus Salam Mufti, Store Keeper (medicine) Zufiqar Ali and Out Door Patients Department (OPD) Pharmacist Muhammad Yousaf.
The court drew the attention of the advocate general and the heath secretary towards the mandate of sections 5 and 6 of the Punjab Employees, Efficiency and Discipline Act, 2006 and noted that proper procedure was not followed while suspending them. “We don’t oppose the legal action, but due legal process should have been followed,” Justice Nisar noted.
The advocate general assured the court that the competent authority will withdraw the order of suspension during the course of the day (Friday) and pass an appropriate order after initial probe and fixation of liability. The Punjab health secretary submitted that the strike by the young doctors was not being supported by the Pakistan Medical Association and it was confined only to the Young Doctors Medical Association (YDMA).
FIA Director (Legal) Azam Khan submitted that two of the three cases registered by the FIA against the pharmaceutical companies had been recommended to be cancelled as the companies concerned were found not to have violated any law or regulation.
Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq submitted that in compliance with the court’s previous order, the provincial assemblies of Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa passed the requisite resolutions in terms of Article 144 of the constitution authorising parliament to pass a law constituting a ‘Drug Regulatory Agency of Pakistan’ and a draft ordinance to this effect had been prepared and to be presented before parliament in due course.
