LAHORE, A special division bench of the Lahore High Court on Wednesday asked the Punjab government to explain why the Fatima Jinnah Medical College was not granted the status of a university at the time when the King Edward Medical College was given the same status.

The bench comprising Chief Justice Khwaja Muhammad Sharif and Justice Ijazul Ahsan also extended a stay against Punjab government’s Nov 26 order under which the FJMC was affiliated with the University of Health Sciences and adjourned the hearing for April 8.

The chief justice had taken suo motu notice of college’s affiliation to the UHS after students launched a series of protests against the move, terming it a severe blow to their future.

Previously, the court had sought minutes of meetings which decided FJMC’s affiliation with the UHS.

Shahzad Shaukat, the counsel for Punjab University, had informed court that the PU stood at 767 number while the UHS was at 5,939 position in the international ranking of universities.

In the national ranking, the PU is on second number while the UHS has not been granted any ranking so far. The ranking list has been prepared in the light of criteria set by the Higher Education Commission on the basis of research-based studies, strength of students, qualification of faculty members and finances.

The PU’s counsel said the ranking of the local institution played a vital role in the admission of Pakistani students to foreign institutions. On the other side, the UHS through its counsel said that at least 28,500 students of different affiliated medical colleges were enrolled with the university.

He said the UHS was established with a vi sion of standardised and specialised education in the medical field.

The university also offered postgraduate courses to prepare students for higher education besides holding training programmes for the faculty of its affiliated colleges on a regular basis. He said almost all major medical colleges in the country, including Allama Iqbal Medical College and Quaid-i-Azam Medical College, Bahawalpur, had already been affiliated to the UHS.

The counsel pointed out that the Section 37 of the UHS Ordinance 2002, which deals with affiliation of medical institutions, required every medical institution to be affiliated with the university unless there was any legal cover in favour of an institution. He also referred to a judgment of the Supreme Court that decided an identical case in favour of the UHS.

COMMENTS SOUGHT: The LHC sought comments from the Services Hospital medical superintendent and the Services Institute of Medical Sciences principal on a petition moved by 19 employees of the hospital seeking their regularisation.

Petitioners, including Muhammad Shafi, through their counsel, pleaded that they had been working as account assistants, receptionists and helpers for the period ranging from two to six years.They said they were appointed on a contract basis under selection policy.

They pointed out that the chief minister through a notification on Oct 14, 2009, had directed all autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies in Punjab to regularise contractual employees. They said in the light of this notification, services of 90 doctors were regularised along with nurses and paramedical and other staff.

They prayed to the court that respondents should be directed to implement the notification and regularise their services.