This is getting
murkier by the minute. Professor Pardha Saradhi, on whose complaint of
plagiarism former Delhi University Vice-Chancellor Deepak Pental was briefly
arrested on Tuesday, has now written a letter accessed by Mail Today to HRD
Minister Smriti Irani requesting her "to help clean up the university of
such plagiaristic activities".
Saradhi has
accused fellow professors in the Department of Environmental Studies of
encouraging M.Sc. and Ph.D. students to plagiarise research papers.
He has collated
thesis papers by students and corresponding research articles from which they
have allegedly been copied. Saradhi has requested the government to weed out
such individuals from the university before plagiarism becomes the order of the
day. "There are several anti-student and antiuniversity activities taking
place in the University of Delhi which I have been opposing in the interest of
the nation. I tried to seek the help of ex-MHRD Ministers but in vain.
Complaints reach the university but no action is taken. Instead, students who
are working with me and I have been targeted and harassed," Saradhi has
written in his letter.
"One
professor," he writes, "was earlier caught for plagiarising research
findings of others but he escaped scrutiny through his connections and
manipulations. Then he and others in the department started training M.Sc.
students, who are otherwise talented, to plagiarise scientific materials."
Saradhi cites the example of a Centre for Inter-disciplinary Studies of
Mountain and Hill Environment (CISMHE) student and the several articles from
research journals which he has copied. He alleges the student and his guide
were not even present in the university during the time the former claims to
have carried out the research work.
Not just DU
Saradhi's fear is
justified. Not just Delhi University, the plagiarism virus has spread across
all leading universities in the city like Jawaharlal Nehru University, Guru
Gobind Singh Indraprastha University and Jamia Millia Islamia. Senior
professors point out that in almost all cases of plagiarism, especially those
involving powerful faculty members or administrators, the response always
begins with a denial by authorities, till courts or independent bodies like
Society for Scientific Values (SSV) pursue the matter to the logical end as
happened in the Pental case. The malaise has also spread to dissertations
presented by research scholars.
The Co-ordination
Committee of Teachers' Associations of Delhi (CCTAD) which represents the four
leading universities has raised the plagiarism issue in a letter to the Human
Resources Minister Smriti Irani on November 20, 2014. The letter states that
"the growing instances of plagiarism and consequent decline in the
academic ethos are detrimental to research and steps must be taken to curb
it.'' According to sources, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU)
perhaps represents the worst case scenario. It has not only protected and
rewarded the accused plagiarists, but also victimised the whistleblowers. MAIL
TODAY had reported on February 1, 2013 regarding the plagiarism charges against
two Deans of Indraprastha University, Prof. Saroj Sharma and Prof. Suman Gupta.
Sources disclose that after a year of enquiry the charges of plagiarism were
diluted in both cases but could not be completely denied and the two professors
continue to call the shots in IP University.
Instead, the
teachers who complained against them had to face memos and show cause notices
and were accused of making false complaints of plagiarism. The university has
also sought to develop a policy on plagiarism that focused a lot more on what
to do with the complainants, rather than on those who are found guilty of
plagiarism.
Interestingly, the
enquiry committee against plagiarism invented terms such as
"tolerable" plagiarism, "negligible" plagiarism,
non-plagiarism, etc., to dilute the charges against Suman Gupta and avoid
punitive measures. Saroj Sharma was let off with a "suitable
advisory".
However, Sharma
said that all allegations against her were false and she has been given a clean
chit by enquiry committee. "These were motivated allegations against me.
It was a third party alleging me of plagiarism of someone else's work. I have
got a clean chit," said Sharma. Professor Suman Gupta did not respond to
calls from MAIL TODAY.
JNU was shocked
recently when in one centre of the university the Chair reported there was more
than 50 per cent plagiarism in many of the dissertations. Yet, these students
obtained not only pass grades but even good grades.
The JNU teachers'
association has recently vowed to fight plagiarism in an ultimatum served to
JNU VC, and has also raised it in the Coordination Committee of Teachers'
Associations of Delhi (CCTAD) that it currently leads on behalf of various
universities of Delhi.
"The current
VC of DU, Dinesh Singh, had his share of trouble for dressing up his
publication lists; the Director of DU's NSIT was removed some years ago on
charges of plagiarism; the Pondicherry University VC is currently facing
plagiarism charges. So are many faculty and students in many other
universities," a senior faculty member said.
Jamia Millia
Islamia has also reported cases of plagiarism with the help of newly-introduced
software. The university used the software before final submissions and all
plagiarised papers were returned to students for rework. In January,
authorities found 59 of the total 61 project works done by faculty members and
students in the past three months contained materials lifted from various
sources
