KARACHI, April 25: The 27 student petitioners, who took the MBBS (final) written examination earlier this month, failed to obtain a court order to appear in the viva voce commencing on April 29 as the Sindh High Court division bench, that passed the earlier order, returned a split verdict on Friday.

As the applications for interim orders to appear in the MBBS viva voce came up before the bench, one of its members, Justice Rehmat Hussain Jaferi, observed that the petitions moved by the 27 SMC students expelled by the Sindh Medical College, were finally disposed of by the exhaustive orders made in the last week of March. No petition was pending before the bench to sustain an interim order. Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany, the other member of the bench, thought otherwise and no order could be passed.

The applications would either be assigned to a referee judge by Chief Justice Saiyed Saeed Ashhad or placed before a larger bench already requested by Advocate General Anwar Mansoor Khan to resolve the conflict arising out of the divergent orders of the two division benches.

A division bench, comprising Justices Osmany and Wahid Bux Brohi, had in February allowed third and fourth year students to appear in the examination provisionally at their own risk. The petitioners appeared in some of the papers but their petitions were subsequently assigned to another bench, comprising Justices S. Ahmed Sarwana and M. Mujibullah Siddiqui, which observed that the petitioners had failed to make out a prima facie case for “any interim relief for grant of permission to appear in the remaining part of the examination.”

The second bench ceased functioning in March and the petitions came up before another bench, comprising Justices Osmany and Jaferi. Disposing of the petitions, the bench allowed the final year students to take the examination provisionally subject to their producing the documents necessary to be submitted for admission to the SMC on April 21.

Instead of filing independent petitions, the students moved applications for permission to sit in the viva voce. They said they had submitted the necessary documents but the SMC authorities had taken no decision in respect of their authenticity.

Opposing the applications, AG Mansoor Anwar Khan and Additional Advocate General Abbas Ali submitted that no petition was pending before the bench to justify an interim order. The bench itself had referred a related matter to the CJ on April 15 for consideration by a larger bench. Four high court and Supreme Court judgments were in the field to bar any relief to those who obtained admissions by fraudulent means or in violation of the rules.

According to the F.Sc. (pre-medical) mark-sheet produced by the petitioner who secured the maximum marks, he obtained 774 marks as against 804 marks scored by the last student on the merit list for 1997-98. The petitioners had also failed to produce the SMC ‘offer letters’ and other documents. No relief could be granted on disputed questions of fact, they argued.

ROAD COMMERCIALIZATION: The Sindh High Court on Friday asked the parties involved in litigation over the city road commercialization plan to discuss the various issues involved and find a way out keeping in view the public interest, environmental concerns and revenue-generation.