PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday admitted to regular hearing several petitions challenging the formation of the Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) and the holding of the countrywide Medical and Dental Colleges Admission Test (MDCAT) by it through a private firm.

A bench consisting of Justice Roohul Amin Khan and Justice Syed M Attique Shah fixed Oct 12 for arguments on the petitions and directed the respondents, including the PMC and private firm Testing and Evaluation Platform Services (T EPS), to file their respective replies to them by then if they desired.

The petitions have been filed by scores of students, who appeared in the MDCAT, requesting the court to declare the formation of the PMC unconstitutional and against the spirit of the provincial autonomy provided in the Constitution.

They also requested the court to declare illegal the tests conducted bythe PMC from Aug 30 to Sept 30 through the TEPS.

The counsel for petitioners included Abbas Khan Sangeen, PHC Bar Association president Bahlol Khattak, Alamzeb Khan, Fawad Afzal, Shabina Noor, Saleem Ahmad Khan, Farooq Afridi and others.

The PMC was represented by lawyer Sangeen Khan, whereas assistant attorney general Taufeeg Qureshi appeared for the federal government.

The lawyers for petitioners said the students had been staging protests across the country against the MDCAT on a daily basis.

They said the PMC was set up through the PMC Act, 2020, for establishing a uniform standard of basic medical education and training.

The counsel said after the passage of the Constitution (Eighteenth Amendment) Act, 2010, health and education had been devolved to the provinces and it was the duty of the provinces to regulate and control those subjects.

They contended that the PMC Act was self-contradictory in its structures and composition as there were three different bodies with the commission, including the Medical and Dental Council (MDC), the National Medical and Dental Academic Board (NMDAB), and the National Medical Authority (NMA).

The lawyers added that each ofthose bodies had overlapping powers and functions depriving the provinces from exercising their control over the medical and dentistry institutions.

They said the provinces bore the expenses of setting up medicalinstitutions but surprisingly, they`re governed by the PMC, a federal entity.

The counsel wondered if education was a provincial subject, why the entry test for admission to medical colleges has been centralised.

They said under Section 18 of the Act, the NMA should conduct a single admission test annually on a date approved by the MDC in line with the standard approved by the NMDAB.

They claimed that the system adopted by the PMC had created chaos for the aspiring medical students as instead of a single paper, they had been appearing in tests on dif ferentdatesfordifferentpapers.

He said the MDCAT paper could be simple for one group of candidates and difhcultfor others.

The lawyers said under the Constitution, equal opportunities were the fundamental right of all citizens, but that right was violated by the PMC by giving different papers to candidates for a single test.

They said setting 65 per cent as passing marks for MDCAT couldn`t be justified in view the situation caused by the coronavirus pandemic, so those marks should be reduced to 50 per cent.