ISLAMABAD: The management of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC), which has faced its fair share of controversy over the last year, has once again received a favourable temporary Islamabad High Court (IHC) order which may ease some of its problems for the time being.

An order of a division bench headed by Justice Noorul Haq Qureshi has suspended a decision of the single bench, allowing the council’s management to restart its activities.

The initial decision, given by IHC Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani on August 5, was in response to a petition filed by a PMDC employee who went to court against an order of transfer and subsequent termination. The PMDC had argued that the petition was not maintainable according to the council’s rules, which barred employees from going to the high court.

Court order allows council’s management to restart its activities

However, Mr Kayani’s order, available with Dawn, said that the court mentioned that the employee had the right to file writ in the high court. The court also said that the management’s orders were questionable, since the presidential ordinance – by which it was established – had lapsed.

The PMDC (Amendment) Bill 2015 was promulgated, through a presidential ordinance, in August last year, and an acting management committee was set up to hold elections. The bill of the ordinance was passed by the National Assembly, but did not make it through the Senate. On April 22, senators Kareem Khawaja and Aitzaz Ahsan from the PPP suggested that the bill be referred to the Council of Common Interest (CCI), and voting could not be held.

The ordinance, meanwhile, lapsed on April 25. Since then, a debate on the council’s status has ensued, because the bill was not referred to the CCI or tabled in Senate again.

The August 5 decision put into question all of the council’s decisions made since the ordinance expired. However, it contained good news for the PMDC’s employees, who were not allowed to file petitions in the high court for almost 45 years. If they did so anyway, the council would question the maintainability of the petition.

PMDC President Dr Shabbir Lehri told Dawn that the judgement had made it almost impossible to run the council, which was why the council members decided to challenge the decision before an IHC division bench.

“We filed an intra court appeal to nullify the order of the single bench... The court has decided that the single bench should not have questioned the functioning of the council,” he said.

“In the appeal, we informed the court that the bill was passed by the National Assembly but the Senate neither passed nor rejected the bill, due to which the National Assembly standing committee decided to refer the bill to the joint session of parliament,” he added.

“Because of the order of the IHC division bench, all the ambiguities have been removed and we against have the moral and legal value to enforce our decisions without any confusion,” Dr Lehri said.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2016