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PU VC comes under fire for defending plagiarists
LAHORE, Dec 03, 2007: Punjab University Acting Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Muhammad Arif
Butt quit the three-day Vice Chancellors' Committee meeting on the very first
day after the Higher Education Commission authorities took him to task for his
soft action against PU plagiarists, it is learnt.
According to sources,
Dr Arif Butt, defending proven plagiarists of his varsity in the presence of HEC
Chairman Dr Atta ur Rehman, argued that since the teachers had committed an
'intellectual crime' unknowingly and for the first time, the commission should
not insist on punishment of removal from the service.
The sources said Dr
Butt while expressing his resentment over the HEC Blacklist of Plagiarists,
which carries names of PU guilty teachers and placed at the commission's
website, also spoke against the list and demanded its removal from the website.
The meeting was held from November 27 to 29 in Islamabad.
A
participant of the meeting said, on condition of anonymity, that the
issue of plagiarism came under discussion when the VC Committee meeting was
discussing the first agenda item 'Quality Assurance in Higher Education.'
He said Dr Atta and HEC Executive Director Dr Suhail H Naqvi took
serious notice of plagiarism cases at the Punjab University and expressed their
concern over award of mild punishments to the plagiarists. He maintained, "They
(HEC authorities) said huge funding was available for universities for research
purposes but plagiarism cases were brining bad repute to the country, besides
damaging the research standards. Plagiarism in universities cannot be tolerated
at any cost." They reiterating the HEC stance of 'zero tolerance' towards the
plagiarism and made it clear to the participants that a teacher should not be a
cheater, the source added. Sources revealed that PU Acting VC attended only the
first day meeting whereas he was supposed to stay there for two days, the third
day of the meeting was reserved for the private sector universities of the
country where representatives of these universities talked about problems being
faced by the private sector involved in higher education.
They said the
participating VCs as most of them were of view that Dr Butt had left following
strong reaction by HEC authorities over the PU plagiarism issue. Dr Atta ur
Rehman and Dr Suhail H Naqvi were not available for comments. However, when
contacted, Prof Dr Arif Butt said he had not quitted the meeting because of
discussion on plagiarism issue. He said he had to go to PU Khanaspur Campus,
Ayubia; therefore he could not attend the next day meeting.
"I had
discussed all the issues and left since I had to go to Khanaspur, I had informed
the HEC authorities that I would not be able to attend the next day meeting," he
concluded. Earlier this year the PU syndicate under the then VC Lt Gen (retd)
Arshad Mahmood while confirming plagiarism charges against five faculty members
of university's Centre for Higher Energy Physics (CHEP) had awarded 'mild'
punishments for plagiarsing the work of some foreign authors.The guilty teachers
including CHEP Director Prof Dr Fazal-e-Aleem was asked to relinquish the
directorship of the centre while other four, Maqsood Ahmad, Rasheed Ahmad,
Sohail Afzal Tahir and Alam Saeed, were issued warnings, besides stoppage of
their two annual increments. The HEC had taken strong notice of these mild
punishments and had asked the university to sack the guilty teachers immediately
however the university did not do so. The HEC had also withheld research grants
of the university for not taking appropriate action.
Following repeated
demands from the HEC for suitable action against the plagiarists, Punjab
Governor/ Chancellor Khalid Maqbool, a couple of month backs back, had also
intervened and ordered a high level inquiry into the plagiarism cases. The News
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