To: The Secretary to Govt. of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Department, Peshawar.

Subject:APPEAL AGAINST THE DECISION OF JOINT ADMISSION COMMITTEE FOR ADMISSION AGAINST RESERVED SEAT OF UPPER TANAWAL (BACKWARD AREA) IN KHYBER MEDICAL COLLEGE SESSION, 2011-12.

Dear Sir, I belong to Village Nambal which is part of Upper Tanawal (Backward Area) of District Mansehra. I applied for the admission in 1st year MBBS for session 2011-12. My merit score was 62.80 and I stood 2nd on the merit list of candidates of Upper Tanawal in the final merit list. With the selection of candidate appearing Ist on the basis of open merit, I stood on top of the merit list and was eligible for admission against the Upper Tanawal (backward area) seat. Regrettably, I have come to know that one of the candidates lower than me on the merit list has been selected for admission against the Upper Tanawal seat. The details of this case in the light of criteria for admission against the subject seat viz-a-viz the final merit list have been comprehensively analyzed in the following notes/Tables:Eligibility Under Criteria: 2.( i ): The candidates must have obtained education from class-I till F.Sc (complete sessions) including SSC with science and F.Sc premedical from institutes within the concerned backward area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and have passed examinations from the same institutes provided such facilities exist in the area.
ID.NO 17288 NAME Muhammad Sohaib Fayyaz Merit Score 62.80 Education Primary Outside Backward Area (Oghi) Outside Backward Area (Oghi) Middle Outside Backward Area (Abbottabad) Outside Backward Area (Mansehra). Matric Outside Backward Area (Abbottabad) Outside Backward Area (Mansehra). FSc Outside Backward Area (Abbottabad) Outside Backward Area (Mansehra). Eligibility No Reason All of education outside the Backward Area for which facilities existed within the area. -do-

16209

Shaista Battool

62.02

No

Eligibility Under Criteria: 2.(ii): Where there are no high schools or colleges available or the facility for teaching science subjects does not exist, the candidate must have obtained their primary and middle education from the respective backward area and must have obtained their SSC (science) and F.Sc (pre-medical both complete Part-I and Part-II) within the district of domicile. This criterion has three conditions and to be eligible a candidate must fulfill all three conditions. If any of the three conditions is not met than the candidate is overall not eligible for preference under this criteria. The first condition is Where there are no high schools or colleges available or the facility for teaching science subjects does not exist,. Since all such facilities are available in the Backward Area, this condition is not met for the area. Therefore this eligibility criterion is not applicable here and none of the students is eligible for any preference under this criterion and no further scrutiny is warranted. (Any student completing all education inside Backward Area would already have been eligible under criterion 2(i)). However, in the table below still gives reasons of non-eligibility under remaining two conditions namely:

the candidate must have obtained their primary and middle education from the respective backward area and must have obtained their SSC (science) and F.Sc (pre-medical both complete Part-I and Part-II) within the district of domicile. As both of these conditions have to be satisfied to be eligible, any student does not fulfill the first of these conditions, i.e. does not attend primary and middle within the Backward area, he is ineligible overall and further consideration pertaining where he / she got rest of the education is not applicable since he / she failed to satisfy the first criteria of obtaining Primary and Middle from the backward area. All such candidates will remain ineligible regardless of whether the remaining education is from within or outside the district.
ID.NO NAME Merit Score Primary Middle Education Where there are no high schools or colleges available or the facility for teaching science subjects does not exist, Eligibility the candidate must have obtained their primary and middle education from the respective backward area No No, because all facilities are available and must have obtained their SSC (science) and F.Sc (premedical both complete Part-I and Part-II) within the district of domicile Not Applicable as primary and middle outside Backward Area Not Applicable as primary and middle outside Backward Area

17288

Muhammad Sohaib Fayyaz Shaista Battool

62.80

16209

62.02

Outside Backward Area (Oghi) Outside Backward Area (Oghi)

Outside Backward Area (Abbottabad) Outside Backward Area (Mansehra)

Outside Backward Area (Abbottabad) Outside Backward Area (Mansehra)

Outside Backward Area (Abbottabad) Outside Backward Area (Mansehra)

No

No

No

Eligibility Under Criteria: 2 (iv) and (v): iv. In case of non-availability of candidates fulfilling the above mentioned criteria, the selection will be made on merit from amongst the candidates on the basis of domicile of the concerned backward area. v. The candidates must have qualified the prescribed Entrance Test for admission to Public sector Medical & Dental Colleges in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
ID.NO NAME Merit Score Education Primary 17288 Muhammad Sohaib Fayyaz Shaista Battool 62.80 Outside Backward Area (Oghi) Outside Backward Area (Oghi) Middle Outside Backward Area (Abbottabad) Outside Backward Area (Mansehra) Matric Outside Backward Area (Abbottabad) Outside Backward Area (Mansehra) FSc Outside Backward Area (Abbottabad) Outside Backward Area (Mansehra) Eligibility Criteria (iv): Domicile Yes Criteria (v): Entrance Test Yes

16209

62.02

Yes

Yes

Explanation: 1) The objective of these criteria, clearly, is to give preference to students who studied inside the

backward area. If they studied outside the backward area then it should be only due to non-existence of facilities. Only in such a case where a student was forced to move out of the backward area due to nonexistence of facilities, does he/she gets a preference if they complete the rest of education (Matric/FSc) within the district of domicile. If a student chooses to move out of the backward area to get education before availing all available facilities, then he/she does not deserve any preferential treatment on the basis of where he/she completed rest of education, be it within the district or outside the district of domicile. This is because they are leaving the backward area by choice and selecting the place of their further education according to their own convenience. Their situation is not same as the student who was forced to move out due to non availability of facilities, which is duly certified by the District Education Officer. Therefore, according to Eligibility Criteria mentioned in the Prospectus 2011-12, it does not matter what place they considered

Overall Eligibility

Matric

F.Sc

convenient for them for the rest of their education and whether it was close or away from the Backward Area, or within or outside of the same district. This is fair as the purpose of these criteria is to give preference to genuine backward area students. This criterion works more like a screening system where once a student chooses according to his/her convenience to get education outside the area at any stage, for which the facilities are available within the area, he/she is screened out and loses all claims to preferential treatment because they are no longer bona fide students of the backward area. Therefore, the selected candidate was not eligible for preferential treatment under the rules / criteria for the admission session 2011-12, and therefore, admission was to be given on the basis of merit among students holding domicile of the area. 2) The authorities have, very wisely, updated eligibility criteria year after year to incorporate

the directions and spirit of the court decisions and lessons learnt from experience. Consequently, the current eligibility criteria is precise, explicit and leaves no room for any whimsical decision or misjudgment by the authorities. However, while the rules have been updated, it seems that the members of Admission Committee have not reconciled with fact that the eligibility criteria explicitly defines terms and conditions, and that now there is no room for exercising personal / discretionary decision in violation of explicit rules. As the directions of the courts have already been incorporated in these rules, there is now little need to refer to old case law while implementing these rules. Moreover, since the wording of the rules has changed since most of the earlier decisions by courts, those decisions are not directly applicable to decision under these rules. Therefore extreme care needs to be taken in applying findings of any of those past cases to this matter and it should be made sure that both the law and the circumstances of the case are exactly identical to matter at hand. 3) The name Muhammad SohaibFayyaz was on the top in the Provisional Merit list. It was

also on top of Final Merit List (after excluding one candidate who was selected on open merit). The Provisional Merit list correctly declared all the candidates as OUT (i.e, ineligible for preferential treatment, other than domicile). The Final Merit List gave the break-up of education of the candidates and whether different parts of education were IN or OUT. There was no mention of overall decision whether any candidate over all IN or OUT, but as the order of merit was not changed, it was obvious that Final Merit List agreed with Provisional Merit List that overall all the candidates were OUT and only provided more detailed break-up of education that was basis of decision in Provisional Merit List. The Final Merit List still had Muhammad SohaibFayyaz on the top. The decision is incomprehensible since it is in violation of explicit published rules, criteria and merit. The basis for this decision, which led to denial of admission to an eligible and deserving candidate under the rule in vogue, is not known and seems to be result of exercise of discretion that was not warranted under the rules. 4) In view of above our plea is that the decision of Joint Admission Committee may

kindly be set aside and I may kindly be admitted in 1st year MBBS against the reserved seat of Upper Tanawal (Backward Area). If the decision of Admission Committee is upheld, I may kindly be informed of the basis of that decision including:
1.

Was the admission awarded strictly according to rules/ criteria as mentioned in the prospectus?

2.

I have included in this application tables that show merit list according to rules in the prospectus in detail. I request to be informed what part of it the Admission Committee does not agree with and on what basis?

3.

The Admission Committee changed the order of merit announced in Provisional and Final Merit List (which were made according to rules in Prospectus) and denied me the admission and granted it to candidate below me on merit lists. If in the opinion of Admission Committee any court decision played a role here, I request to be informed specifically what part of which court decision in their opinion made them change the order of merit?

4.

The Admission Committee has decided that candidate Ms. Shaista Battool, who was below me on merit, deserved preferential treatment and was awarded admission. I request to be informed, on the basis what part of the admission rules do they think that the candidate who has not studied in the backward area for a single day was a more eligible backward areas student than me?

In brief, none of the candidates fulfilled the criteria for preferential treatment to be considered IN on the merit list for admission against backward area seat, primarily for not attending primary and middle class education in the backward area which has been made the basis in the published criteria. Therefore, all the candidates holding domicile of the backward area were OUT and were to be considered for admission on the basis of merit. I being first on the merit deserved admission but instead a candidate lower in merit has been admitted. It is incomprehensible why the Admission Committee would decide that the candidate (Ms. Shaista Battool), who has not studied for a single day inside the Backward Area, deserved preferential treatment as a bona fide Backward Area candidate in violation of the admission criteria given in Prospectus. The decision of the Admission Committee is incomprehensible and in explicit violation of the published admission criteria / rules for the session 2011-12. In view of above facts, I request that the decision of Joint Admission Committee may kindly be set aside and I may be admitted in 1st year MBBS against the reserved seat of Upper Tanawal (Backward Area). It is further requested that necessary measures may kindly be instituted to prevent repetition of such an episode, which has far reaching implications for the students community and credibility of the institution. Yours sincerely, (Muhammad Sohaib Fayyaz), S/O Dr. Fayyaz Ahmed, Village Nambal, Tehsil Oghi, Distt: Mansehra. Mobile: Copy to:1. The Chief Secretary, Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Peshawar. 2. Secretary to Governor, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Peshawar.