MUZAFFARABAD: The Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) High Court on Wednesday took up a petition filed by 28 doctors from the AJK health department, challenging the denial of their teaching allowance by the administration of the AJK Medical College Muzaffarabad (AJKMC).

The petitioners, Prof Dr Adnan Mehraj and others, have also requested the suspension of proceedings on a Dec 12, 2015 advertisement by AJKMC seeking applications for the posts of professors, associate professors, assistant professors and more, without specifying the number required in each faculty or department.

AJKMC Muzaffarabad was established in November 2011, along with the Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Medical College Mirpur. A third public sector medical college was set up in Rawalakot in 2012, and all three are governed by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) Act, as adopted by the AJK Assembly.

According to the petition the PC-1s of all the colleges provided superfluous faculty, hired against special pay packages from the open market, adversely affecting fiscal allocations for each of them.

28 doctors file petition challenging recruitment of faculty from open market and denial of teaching allowance

The petitioners told the court that, currently, 10 professors, one associate professor, 19 assistant professors, one senior registrar and 58 demonstrators and resident medical officers (RMO) were employed at AJKMC against special pay packagers. The PC-1 for AJKMC also provided the induction of eligible doctors on the AJK health department payroll as associate and assistant professors, senior lecturers or registrars, and demonstrators or RMOs against a monthly teaching allowance of Rs40,000, Rs30,000, Rs25,000 and Rs20,000 respectively.

The petitioners, who were from the Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed alNahayan Hospital and the Abbas Institute of Medical Sciences Muzaffarabad – both PMDC affiliated teaching hospitals – informed the court that some of them were appointed as assistant professors and some as associate and full professors between November 2011 and January 2015. The petitioners received seven months of uninterrupted teaching allowances, after which the allowances were received after several months.

Overall, the petitioners received the allowance for 20 out of 51 months, and payment had come to complete halt five months ago. They added that rather than adjusting local human resources, fresh posts to be filled from outside were advertised in December last year.

They also said that the advertisements did not mention the requirements of specific departments, which raised suspicion because the faculty in some departments was complete but was superfluous in others.

They alleged that while the respondents had failed to follow the PMDC Act, PMDC too had failed to exercise its powers to ensure that its guidelines were adhered to, in order to provide quality medical education in AJK.

“We and many others, who are eligible to impart medical education under the PMDC rules and regulations and also qualify to hold the posts of professors, associate professors and assistant professors, are being deprived of our right,” they said.

“Instead of being treated at par with our counterparts hired from the open market against special pay packages, notwithstanding the dual duties we perform, we are even being denied the paltry teaching allowance.”

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2016