PESHAWAR, Dec 14: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday reserved its judgment on six identical writ petitions challenging the holding of admission test by the Education Testing and Evaluation Authority (ETEA) for public sector medical colleges in the province.

A two-member bench comprising acting Chief Justice Shahjehan Khan Yousafzai and Justice Ijazul Hassan heard arguments of the counsel of the petitioners, ETEA and the joint admission committee of the medical colleges.

About 80 students have challenged the holding of the entrance test by the ETEA on various grounds and requested that the test held in September may be declared null and void.

The petitioners have alleged that the checking of the entrance test paper was not up to the mark and marks were given to students on wrong answers, whereas their correct answers were marked wrong. They further requested the court either to order conducting the test again or to re-check the papers through the Aga Khan Education Board (AKEB).

Barrister Masood Kausar, Bashir Khan Tanghi, Ms Neelum Khan and Nasir Mehfooz appeared for the petitioners. They contended that competent professors of different colleges had verified that the answers of about 23 questions had been fed wrongly in the test and marks were deducted from students who had given the correct answers.

They contended that the test was not held in a transparent manner. They added that prior to the present test the papers were leaked and different persons were also arrested in that connection. The counsel stated that the test had lost its utility.

Advocate M. Sardar Khan appeared for the ETEA and contended that nobody had raised any objection against the test except the present petitioners. He added that there were minor typing mistakes in the paper which were duly explained to the candidates.

He argued that due to the entrance test system the admissions to the public sector medical colleges had now been held in a transparent manner. He argued that the Supreme Court had already declared the entrance test as legal in an earlier case few years ago.

Advocate Waseemuddin Khattak appeared for the chairman, Joint Admission Committee, Dr Umer Ali Khan,and contended that admissions on open merit seats had already completed and roll numbers had been assigned to the students. Mr Khattak stated that the classes had started on Dec 1. He argued that the admission process had been completed by the committee and the acceptance of these petitions would complicate the issue.