LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday extended the suspension of a Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) directive for Afghan medical students to return to the neighbouring country after the lawyers representing the body and a varsity sought more time to submit their replies.

The PMDC issued a notification on September 1, directing Afghan medical students enrolled in Pakistani colleges to return to Afghanistan. The notification also barred medical and dental colleges from granting admission or placement to Afghan students for the current academic session.

Subsequently, a set of petitions against the directive was filed by 13 Afghan students enrolled at different institutions in Lahore, including King Edward Medical University, Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Medical and Dental College and the Services Institute of Medical Sciences, on September 10.

At the last hearing on Sept 11, LHC’s Justice Khalid Ishaq had sought replies from the respondents, including the PMDC, the health ministry and the vice chancellors of the medical varsities and colleges in question.

But the lawyers for the PMDC and the University of Health Sciences, appeared before the court on Friday, and sought more time to furnish their written replies.

The judge allowed their requests and adjourned the hearing for a date to be fixed later.

During the hearing, Justice Ishaq also heard a plea filed by five Afghan medical graduates on Thursday.

The petitioners said they completed a five-year MBBS programme in the 2021-2026 session under the HEC-administered Allama Iqbal Scholarship, but the PMDC had left their registration applications undecided for months.

The five petitioners argued in their plea that without PMDC registration, they could not enrol in the mandatory year-long house job required to practice medicine, which effectively stalled their careers despite having fulfilled their academic requirements. They contended that PMDC’s own 2025 regulations granted graduating students a right to a house job placement at their affiliated teaching hospital, and that the council’s governing 2022 Act did not empower it to order deportations.

The plea was clubbed with those filed on Sept 10.

Specifically regarding this petition, Justice Ishaq asked the counsel for the petitioners, Advocate Asad Jamal, to satisfy the court as to how his clients could seek a year-long house job as a right, keeping in view Pakistan’s current foreign policy.

He also asked the lawyer why did graduates wanted to continue their stay despite completing their MBBS programme.

Advocate Jamal responded that the graduates had a legitimate expectation for a house job after the completion of their programme.

Justice Ishaq the directed the counsel to convince the court on the maintainability of the pleas filed by the graduates, keeping in view Pakistan’s current foreign policy.

A large number of Afghan medical students were also at the court to attend the hearing.

Deportation drive

Millions of Afghans have poured into Pakistan over the past several decades, fleeing successive wars, as well as hundreds of thousands who arrived after the return of the Tali­ban government in 2021.

A deportation drive first launched in 2023 was renewed in April last year when the government rescinded hun­dreds of thousands of residence permits for Afghans, warning them of arrests if they did not leave.

Last year alone, over a million Afghan nationals were deported by Pakistan, a Senate Standing Committee on Kashmir Affairs, Gilgit-Baltistan and States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON) was informed.

Pakistan deported a total of 1,155,221 Afghan nationals in 2025, top officials of the Ministry of Interior and Chief Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees told the meeting.

The repatriated Afghans included 163,429 proof of registration card holders, 74,943 Afghan citizen card holders, 509,671 undocumented individuals and 407,178 voluntary returnees.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the repatriations appear to have picked up pace in the current year, with nearly 150,000 Afghans returning home from Pakistan and Iran by mid-February 2026. These returns added to the 5.4 million Afghans who have gone back to Afghanistan from the same two neighbouring countries since October 2023.

In June, the Ministry of Interior issued a directive to immediately arrest any Afghan national “found residing in Pakistan without a valid visa”.