Lucknow: A second chance has been awarded to Professor Vinay Kumar Pathak, the Vice-Chancellor of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow, who was found guilty of plagiarism by the University Grants Commission.
Out of the three cases of plagiarism and fake thesis writing for PhD filed by UGC, two cases involve the vice chancellors of the university, and Pathak is one of them.
However, Pathak was awarded a second term as V-C by the Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik, on August 2.
The Samajwadi Party Spokesperson and MLC Sunil Singh Sajan, have raised questions over the intent of the Governor for awarding another term to Pathak as VC, and have made demands to sack him immediately.
“It is very interesting to see that at one hand UGC and junior HRD Minister in Rajya Sabha talk about plagiarism charges on Vinay Kumar Pathak on one hand, but on the other hand, Governor Ram Naik has made the decision of giving him another term. BJP’s own minister Dara Singh Chauhan had also accused Pathak of corruption, but Governor doesn't seem to be bothered about the serious charges. There is a smell of corruption and Governor should answer why he awarded Pathak another term. ” he said.
While answering a written question in Rajya Sabha on Thursday, the junior HRD Minister Satya Pal Singh said, “The UGC has informed that three cases have come to their notice in last three years against Chandra Krishnamurthy, vice chancellor of Pondicherry University (2015); Anil Kumar Upadhyay, reader of Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapeeth, Varanasi (2017); and Vinay Kumar Pathak, vice chancellor of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow (2018). One of the accused has Chandra Krishnamurthy has been dismissed from the post in July 2016, and the other two universities have been asked to take action against the remaining two.”
The University Grants Commission had approved the regulations in its meeting held in March 2018 and had recommended graded punishment for plagiarism. As per the gazette notification, for students, plagiarism of up to 10% would not invite any penalty while that of between 10-40% would mean the students will have to submit a revised research paper within six months.
While for teachers, if their academic or research papers yield similarities in the range of 10- 40% with other papers, they will be asked to withdraw the manuscript. In case the similarities are ranging anywhere between 40% to 60%, they will not be allowed to supervise new masters, MPhil, PhD students for two years and will also be denied the right to one annual increment. In the case of repeated plagiarism of over 60% similarity, the faculty members will be suspended, even dismissed.
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