17 February 2004	Tuesday	25 Zilhaj 1424

KARACHI, Feb 16: A full bench of the Sindh High Court asked the petitioners' counsel in the Sindh Medical College students' case on Monday to submit a concise statement of their claim with copies of the documents they relied on on Feb 23.

The three-member bench has been constituted to resolve the issues arising out of divergent judgments of two division benches on writ petitions moved by the students of the college expelled for obtaining admissions fraudulently.

The college took the action after a probe by the provincial governor's inspection team early in the year 2002. The affected students were given the option either to submit copies of the documents needed for admission or have their admissions cancelled.

The students moved the high court, saying that they were validly admitted and that their admissions could not be challenged or set aside after years of study as bona fide students and, in certain cases, after qualifying preliminary professional examinations.

They said they could not be punished for corrupt means employed by the staff responsible for vetting admission cases. One division bench dismissed their petitions while another division bench partially accepting another set of petitions, allowing the students take the exam provisionally subject to a fresh verification of their documents by the college authorities.

The new bench, which consists of Justices Shabbir Ahmed, Ghulam Rabbani and M. Sadiq Leghari, briefly heard Advocate-General Anwar Mansoor Khan and Additional AG Abbas Ali for the provincial government and the college authorities and Advocate Raja Qureshi for the petitioner students.

It asked the counsel to submit a summary and documents in respect of each of the petitioners to establish his claim as a validly admitted student. The documents include mark sheets, domicile and permanent residence certificates, offer letters from the SMC, and admission fee receipts for the academic session concerned. Further proceedings were adjourned to Feb 23.