KARACHI: AG places IBA test probe report before High Court
By Shamim-ur-Rahman
KARACHI, Feb 14: When the hearing of various petitions challenging the locus standi of the IBA tests for admission to medical colleges came up before a division bench of the Sindh High Court on Thursday, the provincial advocate- General placed a copy of the Governor’s Inquiry Committee’s report, on record.
The bench consisted of Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice Ali Aslam Jaferi.
In the course of argument, the counsel for the IBA submitted that out of the 35 candidates, whose names had been omitted, four would have been eligible if they had not indulged in alleged manipulation.
When Justice Ahmed inquired whether there were separate listing of genuine and forged sheets, the Advocate-General, Raja Qureshi, submitted that all this was contained in the inquiry report, based on findings of the testing authority. This included details of the forged sheets and the original retained sheets.
In the course of argument, S. M. Iqbal, counsel for some of the petitioners, submitted that the final challan had been submitted in a lower court and among the 33 declared suspects, two were parents of the students.
He submitted that some of the officials of the IBA had been arrested and challaned, but the students who had allegedly indulged in malpractices had not been penalized.
It was his contention that the merit order of the IBA was mala fide. In this context, he pointed out that if the candidates had been divided into three categories, the IBA should have considered students from the second category after accommodating students from the first, but the testing authority gave preference to category three by ignoring those who had scored more marks.
In this context, another counsel, Mahmood Alam Rizvi, submitted that students from serial number 415 to 439 could have been accommodated after removal of 24 candidates of Karachi, but students from serial number 450-472 had been accommodated.
He argued that as no connecting evidence against the 33 persons had been shown, they could not be deprived of admission to medical colleges.
It was the contention of counsel S. M. Iqbal and Mahmood Alam Rizvi that none of the 14 petitioners had been made accused in the challan filed before the judicial magistrate, Mubina Town, and requested provisional admission subject to confirmation and disposal of investigations and the case.
S. M. Iqbal also argued that the original copies had not yet been supplied, and said that the same should be sent to handwriting expert. He argued that on the basis of forgery committed by a couple of students others could not be debarred from admission.
He also pointed out that it was a condition of the medical colleges that if any document was found to be illegal or forged, at any stage, admission of the student was liable to be cancelled.
The advocate-general submitted that since criminal proceedings were under way and the same were not within the scope of article 199 of the constitution, the petitions were not maintainable.
Counsel Iqbal argued that the petitioners should be given provisional admission, subject to any verification.
Justice Ahmed observed that this was a serious matter. How could they be admitted if they were down on the merit list? If it was proved then it was a serious mala fide which would affect the whole system, and he asked the petitioners to prove it.
The advocate-general, however, did not mention anything about the provincial government’s response to an earlier proposal for re-examination of a limited number of students.
When the petitions challenging omission of names of the petitioners from the IBA test’s second list had come up before a division bench on Jan 25, the advocate-general had sought more time for seeking the government’s instructions.
He had requested the court to postpone the hearing for a few days because a meeting was scheduled for Jan 29 with the health department officials to consider the contentions of the petitioners whose counsel, S. M. Iqbal and Mahmood Alam Rizvi, had proposed re-examination of a limited number of candidates.
They had also requested for allowing the petitioners to deposit their fees with the medical colleges while the matter was decided by the court.
