HC dismisses plagiarism plea against JNU professor

The Delhi High Court has dismissed a plea against a professor of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) who was accused of plagiarising his doctoral thesis. A five-member

The Delhi High Court has dismissed a plea against a professor of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) who was accused of plagiarising his doctoral thesis. A five-member committee, which was constituted to verify the allegations, found that the charges were “not established”, the court said.

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A bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar said that based on the findings of the committee, the court does not find any reason to entertain the plea.

The plea was filed by research scholar Nadeem Akhtar against the then-associate professor Ishtiaque Ahmed seeking cancellation of latter’s PhD degree while also prohibiting him from supervising and guiding any MPhil or PhD students in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) till the pendency of the plea.

The plea had contended that Ahmed had plagiarised texts and footnotes from various books of writers in his PhD thesis. A complaint was also placed before the university’s executive council in its 269th meeting on September 18, 2017. The council had issued a warning to Ahmed, who is now a professor, because the charges had not been recognised as plagiarism.

Following the plea, the court had constituted a five-member committee to look into the issue. The minutes of the committee’s meeting, held on November 28 last year, showed that “the charges of plagiarism in the thesis submitted by Ahmed in the year 2000 were held as not established”.

“Looking into 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 Respondent no 3 (Ahmed) is held as not established,” the court said in its order dated November 25.

According to the plea, Ahmed had submitted his thesis ‘Iranian Politics: Intellectuals and Ulama’ in July, 2000, and was awarded PhD in Persian Language from JNU on this thesis. There were repeated allegations of plagiarism in this thesis.

The plea claims that a huge chunk of Ahmed’s thesis had been lifted ad verbatim from 15 different sources. “The Respondent no. 3 (Ahmed) has not only plagiarised texts and footnotes from various books of writers in his PhD thesis, but has also plagiarised the conclusion of his thesis using the conclusion of an eminent writer, as his own; which defeats the entire purpose of submitting an original thesis for the award of the PhD degree,” the plea had alleged.

Reacting to the order, Akhtar said, “The evidence produced in the court is wrong. There were two reports. In one, the university found the plagiarism allegations to be true. Following this, a second committee was established by the university and this committee said there was no plagiarism. We will take it further and see if we can move for review in the Supreme Court.”