PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench was informed on Tuesday by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) that five private medical colleges in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were involved in irregularities in the recent admission process as they manipulated the 20 per cent interview marks.

The bench of PHC Chief Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan and Justice Mohammad Nasir Mehfooz was informed in two separate inquiry reports submitted by NAB and FIA that five of the 17 private medical and dental colleges in the province manoeuvred the admission process wherein lower aggregate candidates of MDCAT were pulled into merit by awarding them higher marks in interviews.

The court during previous hearing on April 1 had directed both NAB and FIA to conduct thorough probe into the allegations of monetary demands made by private colleges for admissions in the province.

PMC vice-president summoned for not taking action against these colleges

The bench on Tuesday also summoned Pakistan Medical Commission vice-president for explaining why it had only cancelled admissions in private medical colleges involved in irregularities in the recent admissions instead of taking any appropriate action against them.

The bench expressed anguish over the matter when it was informed that the commission had ordered cancellation of the admissions and conducting the same afresh.

The PHC chief justice observed that appropriate action should have been taken against the medical colleges involved in irregularities rather than only cancelling the admissions.

The bench fixed May 6 for next hearing with the direction that the PMC vice president should appear in person.

The court had taken notice of the issue during a previous hearing of a petition challenging clause 18 of Admissions Regulations (Amended) 2020-21 and requesting the court to declare as unconstitutional the fixation of 20 per cent interview marks for admission to private medical colleges.

The petitioners, Laiba Javed and 33 other students, have sought several reliefs from the court related to Admissions Regulations (Amended) 2020-21, which provides for the centralised admission policy for the public and private medical and dental colleges in the country.

The petitioners have requested the court to direct the provincial government to exercise its executive power to declare that only students of the province will be given admission to the local private medical and dental colleges on the basis of domicile and over all merit.

Advocates Waseemuddin Khattak appeared for petitioners and stated that Clause 18 of the Regulations provided 20 per cent marks for interview in private colleges, which was against the law as there were no interview marks for getting admission in public sector colleges.

He claimed that giving 20 per cent marks for the interview in the private sector opened flood gate for corruption and bribery in shape of donations, etc.

The FIA in its report claimed that some of the private colleges were found involved in gross irregularities during recent admissions of MBBS by misusing the 20 per cent discretionary marks for ulterior motives.

The report provided that candidates low in PMC merit were awarded higher marks in the so-called interviews. It added that no proper merit lists were displayed during the process for transparency.

It alleged that some colleges received donations and advance fee of Rs6 million to Rs7 million from students and even bank guarantees were obtained from the students.

The FIA report recommends deregistration of some of the colleges and review of admissions on merit in private medical colleges.

The NAB in its report claimed that some of the colleges used interview marks for illegally demanding hefty fee of five years in lump sum, donations, bank guarantees, etc from students instead of conducting proper interviews for upholding the merit.

It stated that in the light of evidence collected so far, it was established that private medical and dental colleges, while in league with PMC, violated merit and indulged in corruption through misuse of authority.

The report recommended that the provision of 20 per cent interview marks at the discretion of private medical college should be stricken down and admissions in those colleges should be given at the criterion of public sector colleges to remove discrimination.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2021