Daily Times

KARACHI: Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday restrained the National Testing Service (NTS) from conducting a fresh test for admissions in government-run medical colleges and universities of the province.

A division bench, headed by Justice Munib Akhtar, while hearing identical petitions filed by students and a political party Pasban-e-Pakistan, issued the restraining orders and sought comments from Sindh authorities till the next hearing.

On November 11, the provincial government had decided to re-conduct the test by annulling the result of a test held earlier after founding the same controversial.

Following the notification, Pasban-e-Pakistan President Altaf Shakoor and a student Haziq Khursheed had filed a constitutional petition, praying to the SHC to declare the government notification for cancelling the NTS results for admissions in government-run medical colleges and universities null and void. Impleading the province of Sindh through secretary health department, NTS through its CEO and Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) through its chairman as respondents, the petitioners submitted that the NTS was a reputed organisation involved in providing services for conducting various examinations, tests, screening processes for the government and other institutions. They denied the allegations of entry paper leak and said that the impugned notification was issued without lawful authority and the same was liable to be declared as null and void. They prayed that Haziq Khursheed and other students who had cleared the test were entitled to be given admission in medical colleges or universities in accordance with their result.

They also prayed the court to declare that the test results of the entry test for MBBS and BDS for session 2017-18 were valid and liable to be acted upon. The petitioners requested the SHC to restrain the respondents or their agents from conducting any other entry test for MBBS and BDS Session 2017-18. Meanwhile, Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday dismissed bail pleas of 15 officials of Pak Punjab Cooperative Housing Society in the case pertaining to misappropriation of 358 plots of the genuine allottees.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had filed a corruption reference in the Accountability Court against the society’s officials, government officers and a builder for usurping 25 acres of land in Pak Punjab Cooperative Housing Society located in Karachi’s ccheme-33.

According to NAB, the accused persons had cancelled the allotment of genuine members and enrolled new members on the platform of a bogus society. The total loss caused to the national exchequer was in millions, it was said.

Published in Daily Times, November 24^th 2017.