KARACHI, Dec 22: The final revised merit list of students seeking admission to the Dow Medical College and the Sindh Medical College will be displayed on Monday.

This was declared by the Sindh chief secretary, Mohammad Javed Ashraf, while talking to Dawn here on Saturday.

He said: “Having scrutinized the results of the second entrance test, the final merit list will be put on display on Dec 24.”

Putting speculation about entrance tests to rest, he announced that no third entrance test would be held. He added that the final merit list would be based on the scrutinized results of the second entrance test given by the Institute of Business Administration on Nov 15.

“The government has already carried out a thorough scrutiny of all answer scripts of the students who had taken the second IBA entrance test.”

The Sindh chief secretary said he had received a report of the Governor Inspection Team on Saturday.

The inquiry committee, which had been entrusted with the task of scrutinizing all the answer scripts of the students who had taken the second IBA entrance test, had been headed by Brig A.R. Nasir.

He added that the report of the inquiry committee would be formally submitted to Sindh Governor Mohammedmian Soomro on Sunday.

However, the Sindh health secretary, Khalid Latif Chaudhry, while talking to Dawn on Saturday night, said that it would not be possible for the health department to display the revised merit list on Dec 24.

“I have received the revised results of the second IBA entrance test. Work on the preparation of the revised merit list has been initiated. It will take the health department a couple of days to make the merit list public.”

The Sindh health secretary said that a meeting with the governor was likely to be held on Dec 24.

“We have yet to see how far the findings of the report are legally defensible.”

Earlier, the chairman of the Governor Inspection Team, Brig A.R. Nasir, told Dawn that the merit list which emerged after deleting the names of those 35 candidates who had resorted to underhand dealing in the second IBA entrance test would be used for admission to the medical colleges.

Answering a question, he said that the inquiry had been conducted in accordance with the terms of reference of the committee. He added that the inquiry report had been prepared in the light of the findings.

He said that during interrogation two of the three culprits had confessed to hav-

ing replaced only 35 answer scripts.

He said that if the health department had taken a decision following the detection of 35 cases of irregularities after the second entrance test, there would have been no need for the inquiry.

Brig Nasir said that after the first entrance test the IBA staff should have informed the director about the loopholes in the system.

“The IBA director did not have the cooperation of his administrative staff.”

However, sources told Dawn that the report also laid stress on forming an independent testing authority.

They added that the third culprit, who was still at large, had taken money from the candidates on the promise that the amount would be distributed after the inclusion of their names in the merit list.

The culprits also confessed to having stealing 36 answer scripts. “While 35 answer scripts were replaced, one was used for photocopying,” the sources said.

As soon as the inquiry report was received, a meeting of the principals of the medical colleges and the additional secretary (technical) of the Sindh health department, Iqbal Daudpota, was also held in the afternoon to discuss the revised merit list.

One of the members, who attended the meeting, said that the principals would cross-check the data received from the IBA before displaying it.