PESHAWAR, Dec 19: The Peshawar High Court on Monday dismissed nine identical writ petitions challenging the entrance test held by the Education Testing and Evaluation Authority (ETEA) for the public sector medical colleges in the province.

A bench of Justice Shahjehan Khan Yousafzai and Justice Ijazul Hassan observed that the authority had held the entrance test in accordance with law. The petitioners could not prove their claim, it added.

About 80 candidates appearing in the test had filed the petitions. They failed to qualify the test.

The entrance test had been scheduled for Sep 25. However, due to the leakage of the paper, it was postponed and held in October. The petitioners had requested the court either to order re-holding of the test or re-checking by the Agha Khan Education Board.

They alleged that checkers had given marks on wrong answers while they had marked correct answers as wrong.

Barrister Masood Kausar, Bashir Khan Tanghi, Ms Neelum Khan and Nasir Mehfooz appeared for the petitioners.

They contended that competent professors of different colleges had verified that the answers to about 23 questions had been fed wrong in the test paper and marks deducted from the answer sheets carrying correct answers.

They contended that the test had not been held in a transparent manner. Prior to the test, the paper had been leaked out and different persons were arrested in that connection. The counsel stated that the test had lost its utility.

Advocate M Sardar Khan appeared for the ETEA and contended that nobody had raised any objection against the test except the present petitioners. There were minor typing mistakes in the paper, which had been explained to candidates.

He argued that due to the entrance test system, admissions to the public sector medical colleges had now been held in a transparent manner. He argued that the Supreme Court of Pakistan had already declared the entrance test as legal in an earlier case few years ago.

Advocate Waseemuddin Khattak appeared for Joint Admission Committee chairman Dr Umer Ali Khan.