Fatima Jinnah Medical Colleges affiliation
LHC cancels FJMC affiliation with UHS
Lahore, March 09: A special division bench of the Lahore High Court on Monday
suspended the Punjab government's November 26 order which had cancelled the
Fatima Jinnah Medical College's affiliation with the Punjab University and
linked it with the University of Health Science, adjourning the hearing until
March 11. The bench, comprising of Chief Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif
and Justice Ijaz-ul-Ahsan, passed the order after UHS's counsel pointed out that
FJMC's students were waiting to appear in the forthcoming supplementary exams.
Neither the UHS nor the Punjab University was ready to conduct the exams because
the latter had no legal authority to hold the exams after November 26
notification while the former was avoiding to conduct the exams because of the
pending litigation on the affiliation issue. At this, the court suspended the
affiliation notification, allowing the PU to hold supplementary exams of FJMC's
students. The CJ had taken suo motu notice of the college's affiliation
with the UHS after the students had lunched protest against the government move.
Shahzad Shaukat, the counsel for the Punjab University, had informed the
court that, in international ranking of universities, the PU stood at number 767
while the UHS was at 5,939the position. In national ranking, PU was on second
number while the UHS had not been granted any ranking so far, he added.
The counsel said the ranking list was prepared in light of criteria set
by 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 counsel said at least 28,500 students of different affiliated medical
colleges were enrolled in the university. He said the UHS was established with a
vision of standardized and specialized education in medical field. The
university also offered postgraduate courses to prepare students for higher
education besides holding training programs for the faculty of its affiliated
colleges on regular basis. He said almost all the major medical colleges
of the country, including Allama Iqbal Medical College and Quaid-e-Azam Medical
College Bahawalpur, had already been affiliated with the UHS. The
counsel pointed out that the section 37 of 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 a judgment of the Supreme Court that
decided an identical case in favor of the UHS. He pleaded that the role of the
UHS was same to the PU as it was only a degree awarding institution. The UHS
counsel said though the varsity did not have its own building so far, a 50
acre-campus at Kala Shah Kaku was under construction with the funding of the
HEC. The news
Post your comments
Explosion unleashes school 'hell'
Lahore: Noor Mohammad had just sat down with his classmates when a
suicide car bomb pulverised part of his school and turned his religious studies
class into a living hell. "We had just assembled in our classroom when it
looked as if hell had broken with a huge blast that rocked our school," he said
at the crater-marked bomb site strewn with collapsed masonry, twisted metal
and snapped tree branches. A thick ball of smoke coiled into the sky
outside the window of his classroom at a privately run madrassa. Wood
panels shattered into shards, hitting and injuring students. "There was panic as
students, many of them carrying their injured friends, rushed to the exit in a
bid to find a safe place," Mohammad said. As he emerged from the severely
damaged building, he remembers people crying and running in different
directions. Lightly wounded, he nursed a wide bandage wrapped around his
head. The bomber struck during the Monday rush hour, causing major
damage. The blast reduced to huge piles of rubble a police building used to
interrogate suspected terrorists and nearby houses. Police said 13 people
were killed and more than 60 wounded, after rescue workers pulled out the last
survivors and bodies from the debris. Daily times
Post your comments
| 
