LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Thursday suspended a Punjab health department’s notification and restrained all the public sector medical colleges in the province from charging high fees from overseas students. Justice Shahid Waheed passed the restraining order on petition of Aqsa Komal, a third-year student at the Nishtar Medical College, Multan.

The petitioner’s counsel contended that 76 seats had been reserved for overseas students at 14 public sector medical colleges of the province. He said an overseas student was required to pay $87,000 annually under self-finance scheme; however, all the medical colleges doubled the fee following a health department’s notification. He said the students were being threatened with cancellation of their admissions if they failed to deposit the increased fee.

The counsel argued the students had paid fee as mentioned in the prospectus issued by the colleges at the time of admissions and the act of increasing fee during the academic session was illegal.

He prayed to the court to set aside the notification of the health department for being illegal.

The judge suspended the impugned notification and sought reply from the health department within a fortnight. The judge also restrained all the medical colleges from taking any adverse action against the students for not depositing the increased fee.

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2016