KARACHI: The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council was on Tuesday restrained by the Sindh High Court from taking any coercive action against the executive director and the joint executive director of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre on a show-cause notice issued to them by the regulatory body of medical colleges and universities.

A two-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Maqbool Baqar gave this interim order on two identical petitions filed by JPMC executive director Dr Tasneem Ahsan and joint executive director Dr Seemin Jamali over the issuance of the show-cause notice.

The two top officials of the JPMC were issued a show-cause notice by the PMDC for not cooperating with its inspection team.

The petitioners, represented by Advocate Anwar Mansoor Khan, impleaded the PMDC, health secretary and Jinnah Sindh Medical University as respondents.

They stated that the respondents were indirectly trying to remove them on one pretext or another because they had moved the SHC through a constitutional petition against the affiliation of the JPMC with the medical university.

The petitioners said the JPMC was not liable for any inspection as it was not affiliated to any medical university or college.

The two doctor petitioners asked the court to declare that the show-cause notice was illegal and suspend its operation.

They requested the court to restrain the respondents from taking any coercive action against them, including the cancellation of their professional medical practitioner licences.

The bench directed the respondents to file their respective replies, and put off the hearing to Oct 24.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2014