ISLAMABAD: While Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University (SZABMU) has decided to give six grace marks to candidates of the Medical and Dental Colleges Admission Test (MDCAT), the Islamabad High Court (IHC) has stayed the result till Thursday (today).

On the other hand, candidates have rejected the grace marks announced by the university, and demanded that they be shown the answer sheets and discrepancies be removed from the key. They also demanded that if it was not possible to make the answer sheets public, the test should be re-held.

On Wednesday as many as six candidates, including Ammar Naeem, Shahzeb Wazir and Saba Iman, filed a petition in which Health Secretary Nadeem Mehbub, Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) President Dr Rizwan Taj and SZABMU Vice ChancellorDr Tariq Iqbal have been made party.

The petition has claimed that in the MDCAT, which was held on Sept 22 and given by over 20,000 candidates, around 27 out of 200 questions were out of course.

The petitioners have requested the court to declare the test null and void and direct the relevant authorities to conduct the MDCAT again otherwise grace marks should be given for the 27 out-of-syllabus questions.

According to Advocate Shafqat Abbas Tarar, the high court single bench, compromising Justice Arbab Mohammad Tahir, stayed the result till Thursday and issued notices for the hearing on the same day.

Meanwhile SZABMU Vice Chancellor Dr Tariq Iqbal, while talking toDawn, said the nine-member committee analysed all the questions and decided to give six grace marks.

He said it was good that the candidates approached the court, therefore the university had decided to let the court decide the matter.

Meanwhile, some of the students and their parents, who visitedDawnoffice, said it was strange that not only were there out-of-course question papers but the arrangements of questions in answer sheets were different. They further claimed that the key was showing different answers for the same questions in different arrangements.

They demanded that the university immediately make the questions public and check what was wrong with the key. They also demanded that a new committee be established in which there was representation of students and faculty members of independent colleges that were not affiliated with the SZABMU.

It is worth mentioning here that clearing MDCAT is necessary to get admission to medical and dental colleges across Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2024