ISLAMABAD: Justice Athar Minallah of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday granted permission to the Shifa Tameer-i-Millat University (STMU) to conduct the annual examination of the Shifa Medical College (SMC) from October 28.

Justice Minallah passed the direction while hearing a case related to the recognition of the two institutes. A number of MBBS students and management of the STMU had filed petitions seeking the degree-awarding status for the university as envisaged in the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) Ordinance.

The STMU was established through an Act of parliament. Under section 2 of the Act, the SMC was a part of the university.

The Ministry of National Health Services on October 15, 2014, through a notification placed the STMU in schedule ‘1’.

However, the IHC on October 16 suspended the notification after the PMDC objected the inclusion of the STMU in schedule ‘1’, saying it was the domain of the council to issue such a notification.

Schedule ‘1’ of the PMDC ordinance empowers universities to award medical degrees to their students.

On Thursday, the IHC also restored the notification by recalling its October 16 order.

Petitioners’ counsel Raja Saimul Haq Satti contended that the Act of STMU and SMC was approved by parliament on March 6, 2012. He said the STMU and SMC had applied to the PMDC for schedule ‘1’ but the latter did not accede to the request. At the moment, more than 200 students are studying at the SMC that is an allied institution of the STMU, he added.

Secretary Health Sheikh Ayub informed the court that as per the court directions he had issued a notification about nine nominees of the federal government in the PMDC, which included a lawmaker, bureaucrats and experts.

The nominees were: Dr Mohammad Afzal Khan, the health secretaries of Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the surgeon general of the Armed Forces Medical Services, retired Justice Tariq Pervez, the director general ministry of health and former PMDC president Dr Sibtul Hasnain.

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2014