Recently, the PMA and the Punjab government held talks with regard to regularization of Senior Registrars and Assistant Professors working on contract basis in the teaching and other hospitals in Punjab. While the majority of these contract jobs have been filled through advertisement, interview and selection criteria laid down by PMDC and by the competent hospital selection boards, some of these contracts have been given without any interview or merit with complete disregard to the eligibility criteria for these posts. These illegal contracts have been granted through the 'relaxation of rules policy' by the previous and the current government to their near and dear ones. Regularizing these 'gifted contracts' will be unfair to rest of the doctors who had gone through the proper selection process. I request and hope the Punjab government would regularize only those contracts which have been given through proper selection boards and to disregard all other contracts which were given on political grounds without any merit. -DR QASIM LATEEF CHAUDHRY, via e-mail, July 20.