January 3, 2002	Thursday	Shawwal 18, 1422

KARACHI, Jan 2: Serious court battle has started between the challengers and the retainers of PMA elections, originally scheduled to be held on December 23, which have been stayed by Civil Court while a defamatory suit has also been filed against the challengers by the present management.

For the first time in more than a decade the PMA is bracing itself for a tough election as the panel in power has been getting walkover in a number of previous elections. However, this time a new challenger group — the Democratic Panel — has given the elections a serious turn.

Though the main group in power has been in command for more than two decades, a number of seniors have left while some of those attached with them in early ‘80s as juniors are now the senior office-bearers.

The Democratic Panel is led by one of the office-bearers while the present PMA management has accused it of mis- appropriation of funds, mismanagement and functional flaws.

A court stay has been obtained on the grounds pertaining to improper voters’ list and it has been pointed out that new voters list contained only the voters’ number and names, whereas it should have the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council’s number of doctors with their father/husband’s names.

Another point of concern is that the list is not in the alphabetical order, making it difficult for the voters to find their names from the 23 pages and in the absence of their residential or office addresses, the candidates will face difficulty to approach the voters.

In its complain, the Democratic Panel has also pointed out that the returning officer, Dr Moonis, was also a candidate himself for the executive member.

On the other hand, senior office-bearers of PMA, Karachi chapter, Dr Tipu and Dr Habibur Rehman, have filed a defamatory suit worth Rs5 million against Dr Sikandar and three other panelists of the challengers’ group.

Dr Sikander is the finance secretary in the PMA, Karachi.

The main opposition comes from a number of junior doctors who have questioned the ineffective role played by the PMA during the four major crises arising this year, including the issue of regularization of about 1300 contract doctors working with the provincial health department for more than a decade, though no other province has this problem of keeping doctors on contract basis for so long.

Similarly, no positive response was given by the PMA, Karachi, on the transfer case of 450 school health doctors who were being sent to the interior of Sindh in which about 300 doctors belonged to Karachi.

Some of the senior doctors are also not satisfied with the PMA administration over the issue of NOCs, required to submit for doing a job abroad.

Other provinces, including Punjab, have not stopped issuing the NOCs to doctors, whereas doctors in Sindh are left with only two options either to quit their existing job to proceed abroad or leave the opportunity.

Another major crisis faced by the doctors of Karachi this year was the proposed shifting of KMC’s hospitals to