PHC allows service commission to interview doctors

Court restrains body from announcing results

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday allowed the Public Service Commission to complete interviews of 3,000 doctors for vacancies in the health department across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s hospitals.

The court, however, restrained the commission from announcing final results while hearing a writ petition filed by Dr Abdul Hadi through his counsel Advocate Khalid Rahman.

The petitioner argued that under the policy 30 marks are allocated to the medical graduates with an MD degree, while 60 to 70 marks are awarded to doctors who have MBBS degrees from colleges in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Rahman said that the petitioner has a doctor of medicine (MD) degree which was equivalent to MBBS as both disciplines have equal duration.

He argued that the Higher Education Commission and Pakistan Medical and Dental Council have declared MD and MBBS equivalent but the commission has kept the petitioner out of the recruitment process.

The counsel questioned the policy adopted for recruitment of around 3,000 doctors and said that even MBBS candidates with less marks were being given priority over candidates with MD degrees with higher marks.

“The reason behind this attitude is that they have acquired the MD from outside the country while throughout the world MD degree is acceptable and not MBBS,” he argued.

He contended that when going abroad for MD students are issued no-objection certificates from PMDC after completion of the degree that proves that this degree would be acceptable.

The single-judge bench comprising Justice Younis Taheem, after hearing the arguments, allowed the candidate in the interview and allowed the commission to complete the process of interviews.

He said that owing to the discriminatory practice, doctors with MD degrees remained at the bottom of the merit list and did not get a chance for selection.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 4^th, 2017.