Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: A fact finding committee formed by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) has found Dr Mukhtar Ahmed, former chief of the commission, guilty of plagiarism, Daily Times has learnt.

The six-member committee formed by the Quality Assurance Division (QAD) of the HEC to probe a public complaint has found 88 and 69 percent plagiarism in two books ‘Organisational Behaviour in Education’ and ‘Leadership & Team Management’, respectively, authored by Dr Mukhtar.

Dr Tahir Rasheed, an academician, had filed the complaint.

As per plagiarism policy of the commission, only 19 percent similarity of content is allowed to authors in their research theses, research papers and books.

According to the findings of the HEC probe committee, a major content of books was copied from the Internet, while some portion was stolen from other publications and student papers submitted to various universities.

The documents stated that after a prolong meeting of the committee, it was found that Dr Ahmed had copied his work from different sources for writing the above mentioned two books and had mentioned the same in his CV allegedly to achieve the post of executive director after which he was made the HEC chairman .

According to a copy of Dr Mukhtar’s resume attested by the HEC’s Attestation Wing, the former chairman had claimed to have written, vetted, edited and published said books. When contacted, Dr Ahmed termed the allegations against him baseless. He had also sent a legal notice to the complainant to sue him. “It is matter of defamation and I will never ignore this.”

Through GHB&C legal firm, Dr Ahmed had forwarded a legal notice to Dr Rasheed in which Dr Ahmed said, “You have dishonestly and with mala fide intention sent letters to various authorities that contain incorrect and false allegations.”

“We, therefore, advise you to desist from the above mischievous activity and stop making false and frivolous allegations against our client and immediately tender an apology to our client, besides withdrawing all the malicious communications made by you against our client within seven days of receipt of this notice, failing which we have instructions to proceed against you in accordance with the law,” the notice read.

According to the Oxford dictionary, plagiarism is defined as “taking and using the thoughts, writings and inventions of another person as one’s own”.

The HEC plagiarism policy mentions that any person found guilty of plagiarism will be liable to be punished as per the prescribed rules, which may also include termination of job and withdrawal of all benefits.

Published in Daily Times, May 30^th 2018.