HC dismisses plea alleging plagiarism against JNU associate professor

The Delhi High Court has dismissed a petition accusing a JNU associate professor of plagiarism, saying the charge is not established. A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar perused the minutes of a Multi-Member Committee meeting, which was constituted following the court's order, and said the charges of plagiarism in the thesis submitted by SK Ishtiaque Ahmed in 2000 were held as not established.

"Looking to the minutes of the meeting of the five-member committee, which was constituted as per our order dated August 13, 2018, the charge of plagiarism in the thesis given by the respondent no.3 (professor) is held as not established," the court said in its order. The court passed the order while refusing to entertain a petition seeking removal of associate professor Ahmed from his post in the Centre for Persian and Central Asian Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

The petition alleged that he had plagiarised works of several authors in his Ph.D thesis as well as in a book on Iranian politics. The Ph.D thesis was on the topic 'Iranian Politics Intellectuals & Ulama'.

The court noted that the professor had obtained his Ph.D degree in 2000 and the petition challenging it was filed after 18 year, that is in 2018. The bench said after looking through the minutes of the meeting of the committee, which was constituted to verify the allegations, "we see no reason to entertain this writ petition".

Regarding the submission of the counsel for petitioner Nadeem Akhtar, a Ph.D research scholar in the same department of the varsity, that there was an earlier report which was against the professor, the bench said this cannot be a ground for entertaining a petition and that too, as a public interest litigation. The counsel for the professor submitted that petitioner Akhtar was fond of filing such type of petitions and one such type of petition was filed against a professor in the Guahati University.

To this, the bench said it was not concerned with the litigations earlier initiated by the petitioner against other professors in other states. "...suffice it to say at this stage that looking to the minutes of the meeting dated November 28, 2018 of the five-member committee, we see no reason to entertain this writ petition. Hence, the same is hereby dismissed with no order as to costs," it said.

The professor had earlier contended in the court that the plea making allegations of plagiarism against him was not maintainable as it was filed with a private interest in mind. His counsel had said that his book was an edited version of his thesis and almost the same piece of research work, and sought dismissal of the plea saying it was "only a personal dispute" with the petitioner.

The professor had sought dismissal of the petition saying there was no bonafide interest of the petitioner in this litigation and it was only a personal dispute with him. The petition had alleged that despite the instances of plagiarism being brought to the attention of the JNU, no action was taken and the person concerned was promoted from assistant professor to his current position of associate professor.

It had alleged that "a huge chunk of his (professor's) thesis is lifted verbatim from 15 different sources. The respondent 3 (professor) has not only plagiarised texts and footnotes from various books of writers in his Ph.D thesis, but has also plagiarised the conclusion of his thesis using the conclusion of an eminent writer, as his own". Apart from that, the petition had also sought quashing of the Ph.D degree awarded in Persian language in 2000 to the professor.

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