ISLAMABAD, (TLTP): Invoking jurisdiction of the Islamabad High Court on Saturday the former principal of KMU Institute of Medical Science filed a contempt petition over non-compliance with the court orders to make functional the country’s medical education regulator — Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC).
Filing the petition through Advocate Sharafat Ali Chaudhry, the petitioner Professor Dr Salim Khattak submitted that an ad-hoc council of the PMDC, constituted by the Supreme Court during 2018 is non-functional as Prime Minister’s Special Assistant (SAPM) Dr Zafar Mirza and Dr Tanvir Ahmad Qureshi, Secretary Ministry of National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination (NHSRC), failed to comply with IHC Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kiani’s directives in the matter.
The petitioner further submitted that the PMDC remained locked due to which thousands of medical graduates including the daughter of the petitioner, could not get register as doctors at the time of pandemic COVID-19, when the health professionals are needed more than any other professional in the country.
Professor Salim Khattak added that thousand of doctors who are being denied registration with PMDC, due to its closure, are made to suffer; more than 1400 graduates only from the KMU of the KP are waiting to be registered. “These graduates are at loss of earning for themselves and as well as a loss for the state to provide assistance in the national pandemic.”
It is pertinent to remember that previously in response to a petition of Dr Salim and others, the IHC had declared that the Pakistan Medical Commission Ordinance 2019 being ultra vires of the various provisions of the Constitution and ordered to revive the Council under PMDC Ordinance of 1962.
The petitioner pointed out that the ad-hoc council has not come to a place till now which has resulted in the long-standing pending registrations of students and doctors and matters pertaining to international recognition with lost credibility of a prestigious authority at international level.
Before the PM&DC Ordinances, 2019 which disapproved by the Senate and Pakistan Medical Commission Ordinance 2019 which was declared ultra vires of the Constitution by the IHC, the PMDC was fully functional as it was headed by its president, former SC justice Mian Shakirullah Jan.
The counsel for the petitioner, Advocate Sharafat Ali Chaudhry urged the court for appropriate penal action against the respondents for their contempt of orders of the IHC, issued on February 11, 2020 while restoring the PMDC immediately.
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