ISLAMABAD: A plagiarism probe against the Executive Director of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) Dr Arshad Ali is expected to be completed next week, chairman of the body told The News on Friday.
According to HEC Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmad, the matter is sensitive so the commission wants to give a proper chance for explanation to the executive director. However, he assured that the matter would be dealt with strictly in accordance with the HEC plagiarism policy.
Earlier, the Commission’s own committee formed to probe charges concluded that the executive director had indeed committed plagiarism in his 2004 paper. The committee was formed after the HEC software Turnitin revealed that Dr Arshad’s research paper “A Taxonomy and Survey of Grid Resource Planning and Reservation Systems for Grid Enabled Analysis Environment,” was almost the exact copy of a paper authored by Chaitanya Kandagatla, University of Texas, Austin America in February 2004. The HEC’s official anti-plagiarism software showed that Dr Arshad’s paper was over 88 percent plagiarised.
The committee informed the executive director about the finding of its probe and sought explanation from him over the issue. However sources said that Dr Arshad Ali has sought more details from the committee about allegations instead of explaining his position.
The matter has been pending for about two months and HEC is being criticised for not taking action against its own higher official. “Rest assured the matter will be decided very soon as per rules,” Dr Mukhtar told The News.
When contacted, Dr Arshad said the issue is still being investigated and he would not comment on the probe. However, Dr Asrhad said he has not been informed about any possible action against him yet.
A top official of HEC told The News that under the anti-plagiarism policy of the higher education body Dr Asrhad could face three actions since his offence is committed before 2007, when the policy was announced. Firstly, he has to withdraw the controversial paper and remove it from his CV. Secondly, he would have to return all the benefits that he obtained as a result of plagiarised work.
Thirdly, he had to submit an affidavit with HEC with assurance that he won’t repeat the offence. However, sources said it would be extremely difficult for the executive director to continue working on his post as it will create huge moral dilemma for the administration of HEC.
“The post of ED is extremely important as he is the principal accounting officer of the commission who handles budget worth billions of rupees annually. How a person with proven guilt could continue on such important post,” asked the official.
As per HEC policy, if most of the paper (or key results) have been exactly copied from any published work of other people without giving the reference to the original work, a major penalty of dismissal from service could be imposed. The policy also mentions that such a plagiarist may be black listed and may not be eligible for employment in any academic/research organisation, and (c) the notification of “Black Listing” of the author(s) may be published in the print media or may be publicised on different websites at the discretion of the vice-chancellor/rector/head of the organisation.” The commission has black listed dozens of university professors for plagiarism in their thesis and research papers.
HEC initiated a probe against Dr Arshad after the story about allegations had been published in this newspaper in December 2017. However the probe could not pick up the pace after the first meeting of a committee presided over by the HEC Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmad in mid-January.
