KARACHI: The University of Karachi (UoK)’s administration is facing immense pressure of unconstrained teachers’ politics and unionist to decide upon the plagiarism cases against involved teachers and students, Daily Times has learnt.
For the sake of vote-bank and voters, most of the teachers, involved in the campus politics and teachers’ unions, are reluctant to oppose or support their colleague and friends who have been punished for their proven involvement in plagiarism practices. One such instance is the plagiarism case of Sulaiman D. Muhammad, also as the acting Vice Chancellor of Federal Urdu University for Arts Science and Technology.
However, the UoK’s syndicate meeting has been scheduled next month on 5th of July, to notify annulment of plagiarized PhD degree awarded to Sulaiman D. Muhammad. The subcommittee of UoK on plagiarism has affirmed plagiarism in his theses and recommended his degree cancellation on 20 April.
Earlier, there were sixteen members in subcommittee from which four members disagreed with committee’s decision and filled dissent notes on the matter in the UoK’s registrar office. Afterwards, Sulaiman D. Muhammad challenged the status of subcommittee on plagiarism in the Sindh High Court, some teachers of the varsity also created obstacles for the administration to delay the notification procedure for the sake of their vote bank.
He also filed a law suit in the SHC and called for to stop the varsity debate for issuing any annulment notification of his PhD degree. The SHC has however rejected his request and dismissed the petition on June 14 while the court allowed UoK’s administration to go by the book and issue notification of the syndicate proceedings in this regard.
It is worthwhile mentioning here that degree of an alumni would be cancelled for the first time in history of University of Karachi. Despite UoK has zero tolerance on the policy for plagiarism but it is also reality that the varsity has had no good reputation and is notorious to resort in the delaying tactics for the plagiarism cases of its teachers.
“University has always adopted prolonged procedures into such cases to provide maximum benefit to the teachers at the cost of quality research”, one of the senior teachers of UoK told Daily Times, added the teachers’ union always poses threats to the administration in case it deals with such issues according to the plagiarism policy of the varsity.
The cases of plagiarism in UoK which have left unattended included the case of Saeed Arayne, former chairperson of the chemistry department, case of Najma Sultana, former dean of faculty of pharmacy and case of former dean of Islamic Studies, Jalaluddin Ahmed Noori, which have not been decided because of the teachers’ union politics.
In the case of Sulaiman D Muhammad, one of the prominent names among the Karachi University teachers unions are influencing and causing delays in the cancellation of his PhD degree. Although, evidences and facts reveal that some of the close relatives of those UoK’s teacher including brother of former Karachi University Teachers Society (KUTS) president Prof Dr Jamil Kazmi is a PhD student at the FUUAST where Sulaiman D Muhammad is acting vice chancellor.
Despite having received international examinations’ reports that ask for the thesis revision and modifications, FUUAST has slipped the case through and has awarded him the PhD degree. It is not surprising why this prominent teacher is causing delays in the case of the acting Vice Chancellor of the FUUAST at UoK.
Earlier senior teachers of the university have on record defended delaying tactics adopted by the university in plagiarism cases. Dr. Shahana Urooj, former dean faculty of sciences, has been defending the administration on the pretext that these cases involve senior teachers.
Published in Daily Times, June 30th, 2017.