ISLAMABAD – Pakistan’s top medical education regulator, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PM&DC), is facing mounting pressure after its failure to respond concretely during a court-mandated hearing on June 17, 2026, deepening suspicions that serious regulatory lapses may be concealed within the system.
The Judicial Activism Panel (JAP), led by Muhammad Azhar Siddique, Advocate Supreme Court of Pakistan, has formally written to PM&DC demanding complete minutes of the hearing and a full disclosure of all actions taken to date in compliance with binding judicial directions.
The letter references the Lahore High Court’s order dated May 18, 2026, in Writ Petition No. 30116 of 2026, and an earlier landmark judgment dated June 8, 2023, in W.P. No. 26651 of 2023. The hearing, chaired by the PM&DC Registrar at the Council’s Islamabad Secretariat, was attended by officers from the Finance and Legal Departments, while Advocate Siddique participated via Zoom alongside other concerned parties. At the heart of the matter lies PM&DC’s alleged inability to enforce a binding fee-regulation framework against private medical and dental colleges across Pakistan. The Panel has pointed out that bulk complaints continue to pour in from students across multiple institutions, reflecting what it describes as a pattern of unlawful fee extraction, regulatory paralysis, and a near-total absence of effective grievance redressal.
Most critically, no concrete response was offered during the hearing regarding any independent or forensic audit of private medical colleges, despite binding directions already issued by the Supreme Court in Suo Motu Case No. 1 of 2010. The Panel’s formal demands include details of any show-cause notices or disciplinary proceedings initiated against errant institutions, whether financial records and fee ledgers of private colleges have been audited, and what mechanisms exist to refund excess fees unlawfully recovered from students.
Going further, the Panel proposed that PM&DC develop a dedicated mobile application for Android and iOS enabling students to lodge complaints, upload evidence, and track grievance status in real time, replacing informal and non-transparent channels currently in use. The letter, copy of which available with Law Today – has been copied to the President and Prime Minister of Pakistan, the Registrar of the Lahore High Court, and the Vice Chancellor of the University of Health Sciences, underlining the profound public interest dimension of PM&DC’s regulatory obligations toward Pakistan’s medical students.
