LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday extended its stay order in favour of Afghan medical students who are challenging the enforcement of orders for their return to Afghanistan. It also gave the counsel for the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) until the next hearing to file the regulator’s reply.
Justice Khalid Ishaq heard the petition filed by 30 Afghan medical students, including Syed Mubeen-ul-Fatti. The petitioners have challenged two PMDC notifications, dated July 31 and September 1.
The court extended its existing stay order until the next date of hearing. The University of Health Sciences (UHS) and all public-sector medical colleges in Punjab have been named as respondents in the petition.
The case centres on two directives from the country’s medical regulator. According to court reporting, the September 1 notification instructed Afghan students enrolled in Pakistani medical colleges to go back to Afghanistan and stopped medical and dental colleges from admitting or placing Afghan students in the current academic session.
The petitioners argue that the directives threaten years of academic progress. Several of them are enrolled at leading teaching institutions in Lahore.
Friday’s order continues relief the court granted earlier this month. The court had suspended the July 31 and September 1 directives and ordered that the petitioners be allowed to keep studying, sit their examinations and return to their hostels.
This means that, for now, the students stay enrolled while the regulator prepares its formal defence.
The PMDC regulates medical education and practice in the country and functions as the top regulatory body under the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council Act 2023. In defending its decision, the council has said the Afghan students were not registered with it, and that only 22 of more than 200 Afghan medical and dental students in the country hold PMDC registration. The students dispute this and say they were never told to register.
At an earlier hearing, the PMDC’s counsel told the court that the students did not hold valid visas. Justice Ishaq asked how, in that case, the students had been issued education visas when they were admitted. These questions are expected to be central when the regulator files its written reply.
On Friday, lawyers for the PMDC and the University of Health Sciences asked for more time to submit written replies, and the judge granted the request. The stay remains in force until the next hearing.
The same bench is also hearing a related matter. Five Afghan medical graduates have said they completed a five-year MBBS programme in the 2021–2026 session on the HEC-administered Allama Iqbal Scholarship, but their PMDC registration applications have been pending for months.
The dispute comes against the background of more than four decades in which Pakistan has hosted millions of Afghan refugees and opened its schools, universities and hospitals to them. Many of the Afghan students were studying on Pakistan government scholarships awarded under the Allama Iqbal Scholarship Programme. The programme was one of Islamabad’s flagship education initiatives for its western neighbour.
The case has also drawn attention because of the wider state of relations between the two countries. One of the petitions cites a media report in which a health ministry official described an “in-principle” decision to send Afghan medical students home amid tensions between Islamabad and Kabul. Pakistan has repeatedly pressed the Afghan interim authorities to act against militant groups operating from Afghan soil.
The legal questions before the court are narrower. They include whether a professional regulator can order foreign students to leave, whether proper registration procedures were followed, and whether the students’ visa and enrolment status was correctly processed.
The court will resume hearing the matter once the PMDC files its reply. Until then, the petitioners remain protected by the court’s interim order.
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