Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Despite clear directions from the Higher Education Commission (HEC), the higher management of the International Islamic University (IIU) is reluctant to take action against a plagiarist faculty member.

Instead of action being taken against him, he has been given the additional charge of the chairmanship of the department and this has resulted in a new controversy at the varsity.

A letter of the HEC, a copy of which is available with Daily Times, states that as per the HEC Plagiarism Standing Committee (PSC) decision, Dr.Muhammad Sher, Dean faculty of sciences IIU, has been proved guilty of plagiarism in his submitted thesis of PhD.

“A major act of plagiarism is already proved. Therefore, the major penalty needs to be imposed by the university. The university is required to share the compliance report within six weeks”, reads the PSC decision.

As per the letter written by the HEC the six weeks completed yesterday (Monday). According to an insider in the IIU, so far no action has been taken by the varsity against Dr.Sher.

Dr.Sher’s doctoral thesis was found plagiarized when the HEC through its plagiarism detection software Turnitin, investigated the thesis on the complain of Daniel J Costello in 2012.

There are three kinds of punishments for the plagiarist—major penalty, moderate penalty and minor penalty.

According to the major penalty, (which the HEC directed to impose on Dr.Sher): “In cases where most of the paper (or key results) have been exactly copied from any published work of other people without giving the reference to the original work, then (a) a major penalty of dismissal from service needs to be prescribed, along with (b) the offender may be “black listed” and may not be eligible for employment in any academic/research organisation, and (c) the notification of “black listing” of the author may be published in the print media or may be publicised on different websites at the discretion of the Vice Chancellor/Rector/Head of the organisation.

Instead of compliance with the HEC directives, as per available documents, Dr.Sher has been appointed as acting chairperson Department of Environmental Sciences (DES) by replacing Dr.Muhammad Irfan Khan.

The officials in the varsity familiar with the entire episode, said that Dr.Khan was replaced as a result of confrontations he made earlier with some senior administrators of the varsity.

Acting Chairperson of DES (female) Assistant Professor, Dr. Maliha Asma, on August 11, 2016 scheduled for a meeting of BOF and she informed Dr.Khan through an email who was then the chairperson of the DES (male).

In response to the email of Dr.Asma, Dr.Khan, the documents state, requested her for sharing the minutes of the GRC for ‘including the agenda’. and he also requested for letting him to check the availability of external members of the meeting.

However, Dr.Asma did not respond to the request of Dr.Khan and called the meeting on her own without intimating him in violation of the IIU’s basic rules. Dr.Asma, being a member of the BOS, has no legal authority to convene the meeting. The section 4.2.3 of the IIU statues, 2006, states that “only the chairperson of the department can call the meeting.

Dr. Khan submitted a complaint of such misconducts against Dr.Asma to the President and the Rector of the varsity.

In consequence of his complaint to the bosses, Dr.Khan , however, has been alleged of harassment by Dr.Asma including three other Assistant Professors of DES: Dr.Rukhsana Tariq, Dr.Rukhsana Aziz, Dr .Waqar un Nisa, and a couple of two lecturers of the DES Anjuman Shaheen and Sajida Naeem.

According to reliable information, except Dr.Asma and Dr.Tariq none of the complaining faculty members were even present at the meeting.

The protection against harassment of women at the workplace act 2010 defines “harassment means by unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favours or other verbal or written communication or physical conduct of a sexual nature or sexually demeaning attitudes, causing interference with work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment, or the attempt to punish the complaint for refusal to comply to such a request or is made a condition for employment for refusal to comply to such a request or is made condition for employment”.

Interestingly, in the application submitted to the president, the female staff did not complain in accordance with the said definition of harassment. “In the BOF meeting the Chairman DES (Dr.Khan) was very loud and shouting at the Dean and us in front of the whole august house. He created such an environment that the female participants felt uncomfortable. Moreover, he also used very vulgar language against the ‘Dean’.

The Rector, Muhammad Masoom Yasinzai, when contacted, said that the matter was in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) due to which he could not comment any more on the matter. The rector seems ignorant about the court’s name. As per the available documents Dr Sher filled an appeal in the district civil court’s Judge Naveed Khan instead of the IHC.