On Thursday (23 September), a huge number of students protested outside the Supreme Court Karachi Registry against the Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) for extending the Medical and Dental Colleges Admission Test (MDCAT) for a period of 30 days.
The students who were protesting held banners and posters which had slogans written on them against online examinations. The students, during the protest, demanded that the Chief Justice of Pakistan Gulzar Ahmed take suo moto notice of the issue.
Protesters asked that the PMC and other relevant authorities hold the MDCAT exam on a single day throughout the country.
They claimed that PMC was holding the MDCAT exam on different dates around the country and that this practise can result in papers leaking. They urged that the government reinstate the prior exam protocol.
The students went on to say that the PMC’s web system had been down for the last two days and that pre-medial students were in distress because they couldn’t get their admittance slips printed during that time.
LHC served notice to PMC
Justice Muzammil Akhtar Shabbir of the Lahore High Court (LHC) issued a notice to the PMC on Monday (20th September) and requested a response on a writ petition seeking cancellation of the ongoing MDCAT for not being held on the same day as required by law.
A senior lawyer, Agha Intizar Ali Imran, appeared on behalf of the petitioner-student Hadiya Khalid, claiming that the petitioner took the MDCAT, however, she encountered several complications during the test that prevented her from obtaining the desired result despite being an exceptional student.
He stated that under the necessary provision of Section 18 (1) of the Pakistan Medical Commission Act, 2020 (PMCA), MDCAT should be held “on the same day” as a “single admissions test” to provide equal chance to all candidates.
Contrary to this, the PMC is holding the MDCAT exam from August 30 to September 30, which is a violation of Article 4 of Constitution and the Section 18 (1) of the PMCA.
The senior lawyer defended his argument by saying:
- The students who will be appearing in the beginning of the September 2021 will only have 1-month time to prepare for their entry test.
- Whereas students who will be appearing in the end of September-2021 will have almost 2 months to prepare for the entry test.
The above-mentioned discrimination is in contravention to Article 25 of the Constitution.
