The Lahore High Court (LHC) has declared it illegal for the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) to retrieve MDCAT question papers from candidates after examinations.
Justice Ahsan Raza Kazmi announced the verdict on Friday at the court’s Rawalpindi bench. The ruling came after the court accepted petitions filed by students challenging the practice.
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The court directed the PMDC to upload question papers from all examinations to its official app without delay. It also ordered the authority to implement the decision on the same day.
Barrister Imran Afrasiab, counsel for the petitioners, argued that students had a legal and constitutional right to keep their question papers. He said collecting the papers after candidates completed the test was unlawful, unconstitutional and unethical.
The petitions were filed by students Rehan Shahid and Anabia Tahir. They challenged the PMDC’s policy of collecting question papers from candidates after the Medical and Dental College Admission Test (MDCAT).
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Assistant Attorney General Malik Zaheer Arshad represented the federal government during the proceedings. The court considered the students’ challenge to the practice before delivering its ruling.
In its decision, the LHC ruled that the PMDC could not hand question papers to candidates and then take them back. The order requires the council to make examination papers available through its app, allowing candidates to access them after tests.