July 01, 2006	Saturday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 4, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, June 30: Their last fight still unfinished, the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PM&DC) are again in the ring - this time sparring over who has the authority to notify the members elected to the council in the Gazette of Pakistan.

Last year the two had fought over PM&DC’s refusal to take on its rolls the graduates of unrecognised private medical colleges which resulted in PM&DC’s secretary being sent on forced leave but did not resolve the issue.

Things appeared to be calm until the MoH issued a letter on June 15 objected to the PM&DC secretary notifying the council’s elected members in the gazette.

The MoH letter said: “The gazette notification issued by the PM&DC in respect of Dr Abdul Rashid Khan, Prof Dr Fazal Ahmed, Prof Dr Shaheena Manzoor, Prof Dr M Akbar Chaudhry and Prof Dr Masood Hameed Khan is without legal effect and not entitled to the membership of the council.”

The reason for this, it said, was that according to PM&DC Ordinance, 1962, Section 4(1), PM&DC is only authorised to conduct the elections under clauses (b), (c), (e) and (f) of sub- section 1 of Section 3 of PM&DC Ordinance, 1962, and not authorised to issue notifications appointing members of the Council.

The notification of members, it claimed, was the sole prerogative of the federal government, which hadn’t been delegated to anyone else.

However, in a subsequent letter on June 28, the MoH for unexplained reasons dropped two of the names, Prof Dr Masood Hameed Khan and Prof Dr Shaheena Manzoor, mentioned in the previous letter and added that of Dr Abdul Salam.

The June 28 letter said notification of Dr Fazal Ahmed, Dr Abdul Salam, Dr Abdul Rashid Mian and Dr M Akbar Chaudhry as PM&DC Council members was illegal.

Sources in the ministry say there are still some other names that had been notified by the PM&DC, but they did not feature on any of the two letters.

Both the letters of June 15 and 28 have warned the PM&DC Secretary Mr Sohail Karim Hashmi to withdraw the notifications or face criminal proceedings for “this act of forgeries”.

PM&DC in its reply to the MoH has insisted that the Secretary PM&DC is fully authorised to notify the elected members. It contends that Regulation 13 (b) of Election Regulations of PM&DC states: “The Secretary of the Council shall notify the result of the election in the official gazette.”

The PM&DC further says that the recent notification of elected members was done according to the practice followed in the past when Director General Health used to be the head of PM&DC as well.

Hitting back at the language of the MoH letters, the PM&DC reply says words like “impersonation, forgery, misleading” for PM&DC were not in good taste. “The threatening language used in the letter amounts to intimidation, threat and subdue beside defamation, aspersion, calumny and obloquy for the members of the Council,” it said.

MoH has been asked on behalf of President PM&DC Prof Dr Abdullah Jan Jaffar to withdraw these words and letter unconditionally.