LAHORE, April 5: Determined to show the door to the five plagiarists of the Punjab University, the Higher Education Commission says it will announce within 10 days its course of action in this regard. The HEC has already announced freezing of the PU’s funding for future development following the latter’s refusal to dismiss the Centre for Higher Energy Physics’ five faculty members, including its chairman, for copying excerpts of foreign authors in their publications.

Though plagiarism charges have been proved, the final inquiry committee, headed by PU Law College principal Prof Dil Muhammad Malik, has recommended no strict action against them.

Instead of taking action against the plagiarists, the PU administration has set its face against the HEC in reaction to suspension of funding and vowed to take the commission to the Council of Common Interest for its ‘arbitrary’ decision.

HEC chairman Dr Attaur Rehman told this reporter on Thursday that a three-member commission’s ethics committee, headed by Quaid-i-Azam University vice-chancellor Dr Qasim Jan, had been constituted to analyse the case and give its opinion by April 15.

“The commission will give its recommendations in the light of the committee’s report and submit the same to Governor Khalid Maqbool — the chancellor of the public-sector universities in Punjab — for necessary action.” He however did not predict the ‘strict action against the PU’ saying that he could not say anything concrete before the committee’s report.

He said plagiarism was a very serious issue and must be dealt with strictly.