Research Scholars / Teachers To Lose Their Jobs if Found Guilty of Plagiarism

College/University students who cut -copy- paste may lose their enrollment and educators who do as such could lose their jobs with the University Grants Commission (UGC) supporting a draft regulation on copyright infringement which will be informed after endorsement by the Human Resource Development Ministry. 

The UGC has endorsed the UGC (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Education Institutions) regulations 2018 in its meeting held on March 20, reported by HT.  

The law recommends punishment for written falsification. The draft rules for students states that in non-core areas, plagiarism of up to 10% would not invite any penalty while that of between 10% and 40% would mean the researchers will have to submit a revised research paper within six months. On the off chance that the similitudes are in the vicinity of 40% and 60%, understudies will be suspended from presenting a changed paper for one year. A student registered for a program will be wiped out if the similitudes are over 60%. 

Educators whose scholastic and research papers have similitudes going from 10% to 40% with different papers will be requested to pull back the manuscript. In the event that the similitudes are in the vicinity of 40% and 60%, they won't be permitted to oversee new Masters/MPhil/PhD students for a two years and will likewise be denied the privilege to one yearly addition. 

In the event of repeat copyright infringement of more than 60% similarity, the employees will be suspended, even expelled. 

“I am all for checking plagiarism which is indeed a problem in India within academia. We have very lax standards on this count and that is what seems to have prompted the government to propose such a law. It would have been better if universities had strong internal mechanisms as in so many other countries,” said Dinesh Singh, former vice-chancellor of Delhi University.

India has been an observer to many plagiarism charges against central university vice-chancellors and teachers in the past few years. Pondicherry University V-C Chandra Krishnamurthy quit in 2016 after a delayed standoff with the HRD ministry, following affirmations that she copied extensive parts of a book said in her resume. The most praised case is that of BS Rajput, the VC of Kuamon University, who was a serial liar; in the end, seven Stanford University educators kept in touch with then President APJ Abdul Kalam about him. A Jamia Professor, Deepak Kem was terminated on the grounds of Plagiarism sometime back but later reinstated. 

As per UGC, all higher education institutions should build up an approach to copyright infringement and get it endorsed by pertinent statutory bodies and show it on their websites. In September a year ago, UGC framed a council and looked for open input on a proposed copyright infringement policy.