ISLAMABAD: The Lahore High Court (LHC) has upheld the decision of the Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) regarding the calculation of elective subject marks of candidates who applied to medical and dental colleges in 2021, says a press release.

Fresh candidates along with students who had completed their intermediate in 2020 had challenged the PMC`s public notice, which stated: `Candidates who passed their FSc pre-medical/HSSC or equivalent exam in the year 2021 and are now applying for admission to medical/dental college for session 2022-23 are informed that only their elective subject marks and percentage will be considered for merit calculation for admission in medical and dental colleges for session 2022-23.

As per PMC`s regulations, the admission process for medical education is based on a prescribed formula in which marks scored in the admission test hold 50pc weightage, (pre-medical)/HSSC scores hold 40pc weightage and SSC/matriculation scores hold 10pc weightage.

The PMC notice was contested on the grounds that the decision to only count elective subjects for candidates who completed their FSc in 2021 was discriminatory towards the candidates who had completed their FSc in 2020 and or post 2021.

The Lahore High Court, in dismissing the petition held that `the policy decision of PMC to the extent represented by the public notice as such fully stands to reason and suffers from no inherent or illegal discriminatory feature being based on tenable classification and, therefore, warrants no interference in extraordinary constitutional and discretionary jurisdiction of this court`.

It is worth mentioning that due to Covid-19, in some boards, exams were either not held or students were given marks in compulsory subjects on the basis of elective subjects.