ISLAMABAD: Four more university teachers joined the club of blacklisted faculty members after a plagiarism standing committee of the HEC found their material copied from other publications.

The plagiarists included three faculty members of the University of Punjab, Lahore - Shama Sadaqat, M. Farhan Akhtar and Khizer Ali. They got published, “A study on the Karachi Stock Exchange” in the International Journal of Business and Social Sciences.

But, according to the HEC, the material was copied from an already published research article written by Mohammad Khalid Sohail and Abdul Rehman. A faculty member of SZABIST, Karachi, Mohammad Nadeem, was also blacklisted for publishing a copied research paper.

According to the HEC website, Mr Nadeem published a research paper, “Study of Pakistan election system as intelligent e-election,” which was copied from a report of the European Union observation mission on the national and provincial assembly elections of 2002.

“We have placed the names of the four faculty members on our website and the standing committee on plagiarism at its last meeting endorsed our decision,” said an official of the HEC.

A press release issued by the HEC on Friday said at its 22nd meeting held at the HEC, the committee discussed the plagiarism complaints against faculty members and scholars of 10 universities.

Presided over by HEC Executive Director Dr Arshad Ali, the committee discussed the 22 plagiarism complaints and directed to issue reminders in 11 cases.

“It also blacklisted faculty members in two cases (four faculty members) for not complying with the HEC directives,” the press release said. Six cases of plagiarism were closed as per policy and two others referred to the expert committee.

The committee deliberated upon complaints which were not being taken serious by respective universities even after the passage of the stipulated period of 90 days.

Engineer Mohammad Ismail, consultant quality assurance HEC, shared with the members the concerns over universities not following the plagiarism policy. He stressed that the HEC nominees in the plagiarism committee were responsible for the proper compliance of the policy on plagiarism.

It may be noted that five cases of plagiarism are pending in courts but the HEC has not been pursuing them vigorously, a charge denied by an officer of the HEC. These included the cases of HEC’s own adviser in learning innovation division, Shaheen Khan; Comsats University’s pro-rector Haroon Rashid and Federal Urdu University of Science and Technology Vice Chancellor Dr Salman D. Mohammad.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2016