In a significant ruling for alternative medicine education in Pakistan, the Lahore High Court has held that homeopathy is a legally distinct and separate system of medicine from Unani and Ayurvedic disciplines — and that it can have its own academic and regulatory framework, including higher entry requirements.
The judgment, authored by Justice Mirza Viqas Rauf in Jhelum Homeopathic Medical College v. Federation of Pakistan and Others (Writ Petition No. 401 of 2022), settles a long-standing dispute over changes made to the minimum qualifications for admission into homeopathic colleges.
At the center of the case was a challenge to the 2021 legislative amendment that raised the minimum eligibility for homeopathy students from Matric with Science to F.Sc. (Pre-Medical). The petitioners argued this was discriminatory, especially since Unani and Ayurvedic colleges still operated under the older, less stringent requirements.
But the Court dismissed this objection — with a firm legal conclusion: homeopathy and Unani/Ayurvedic systems are not interchangeable, and they can be regulated differently without violating constitutional protections of equality under Article 25.
“Homeopathy and Unani or Ayurvedic System of Medicine are two different entities,” the Court ruled, “and there is no constitutional bar to treating them as such for regulatory purposes.”
The ruling affirms the legitimacy of raising academic standards within homeopathy — a field that has seen rapid growth in Pakistan but often suffers from uneven regulation. By recognizing the legal separateness of each traditional system, the Court paved the way for tailored reforms to professionalize each discipline independently.
“The right of equality,” Justice Rauf noted, “is always to be weighed amongst equals in all respects. Classification based on different educational or professional structures is constitutionally permissible.”
The Court also cited Section 21 of the Unani, Ayurvedic and Homoeopathic Practitioners Act, 1965, which already provided separate mechanisms and preferences for admission in each system. Homeopathy, it noted, had distinct instructional content and required a stronger grounding in modern science — justifying the shift to F.Sc. Pre-Medical as a baseline.
Constitutional Equality Does Not Mean Uniformity
While Article 25 of the Constitution ensures that all citizens are equal before the law, the Court emphasized that equality does not mean identical treatment. Legal distinctions — especially in education and health — are allowed if based on “intelligible differentia” and reasonable classification.
This doctrine, long accepted by Pakistan’s superior courts, permits the State to regulate distinct medical traditions differently if the policy has a rational basis.
Impact on Students and Colleges
The decision strengthens the federal government’s hand in improving academic standards in homeopathy — and could inspire similar reforms in Unani and Ayurvedic education. Homeopathic colleges will now have to ensure that new entrants meet the revised criteria, while prospective students will be expected to come with a stronger science background.
Critics of the change may continue to challenge implementation hurdles, but the legal question appears settled for now: homeopathy is its own discipline — and it must stand on its own academic feet.
