PESHAWAR: Chief Justice Peshawar High Court (PHC) Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel on Wednesday stayed appointment of 1100 doctors on adhoc and issued notices to secretary and director general of Health Department to file their replies within 15 days. He remarked that new experiments on daily basis had destroyed the health system due to which instead of providing better health facilities have deteriorated. The division bench headed by the chief justice issued the stay on petitions filed by Dr Raheel and Dr Umer Habib along with four others through their counsel Khalid Rahman. When the hearing commenced, Rahman told the bench that the petitioners have done MD from foreign countries who returned to serve people in their own country. He argued that Pakistan Medical and Dental Counsel has registered. He argued that whenever Health Department advertises posts it give preference to doctors who have degrees in medical profession from universities inside the country. “The applicants with medical degrees from local universities are given 60-70 marks while those who have degrees from foreign universities are given only 30 marks which is discrimination,” he said. Rahman said that there was neither specific policy nor a notification issued to justify the distribution of marks rather the practice has been done under a performa. He told the bench that Health Department has recently started recruiting 1100 doctors on adhoc basis in different hospitals where the department has been hiring them under Public Service Commission policy. He argued that under this policy the department has been preferring students with MBBS degrees from local medical colleges over students with MD degree keeping the latter far behind on the merit list which was illegal. He prayed the bench to stay the recruitment process and order the authority to treat the petitioners equally. The chief justice remarked that when PMDC has accepted them as doctors then why the department has owned such a discriminatory policy? Additional Advocate General replied that the hiring was being done to provide better and improved healthcare facilities as currently the department was faced with problems due to shortage of medical practitioners. He prayed the bench not to stay the recruitment process. The Chief Justice remarked that situation in the hospitals were being deteriorated instead of improving due to experiments and stayed the recruitment process ordering the respondents to file replies within 15 days.