The writer is a former chairperson of the Higher Education Commission
In 2003, I helped a faculty member, M Nadeem, in collecting data for a report that he was writing on electronic voting. He subsequently published the report, in 2004, without my knowledge, in a non-recognised journal, of which he was the editor and used my name as co-author. Since it was typical that authors write names of advisers in their papers, and since I was his adviser in his other work, he put my name on the paper as an acknowledgment. No one, including me, could have verified the originality of anyone’s work then, since no anti-plagiarism softwares were available at that time. The paper eventually got listed in my CV — an innocent oversight as there was no vested interest involved because the journal was not of a notable stature even by Pakistani standards.
However, the main author, M Nadeem, held himself fully responsible for writing the paper by mentioning that “Dr Javaid Laghari had no role or contribution in the technical part of the report, who only helped me in collecting election data for Pakistan and I had included his name in the paper just for acknowledgement”. He also added the following disclaimer to the paper: “Above all, any remaining errors, impertinencies and imbecilities are entirely my responsibility.”
After anti-plagiarism softwares became freely available, it came to my attention about six months back that the paper was plagiarised to an extent of 30 per cent. I immediately took it off my CV, wrote to the current editor of the journal to withdraw the paper, located M Nadeem on Facebook, as he was working outside the country, and messaged him seeking a clarification on the paper. He replied by email saying that he had added my name without my permission and that I had no contribution in the paper.
No one is denying that plagiarism was not committed — but is the accused guilty? I had no role in writing the technical part of the paper or any information about it being plagiarised in 2003 as that could not have been detected at the time. I took action as soon as the plagiarism was reported. However, the story and editorial published in The Express Tribune calling me guilty are totally misleading and also contradict the opinion of the HEC Plagiarism Committee. The head of the committee, Dr Iqrar Ahmed, vice-chancellor of the University of Agriculture Faisalabad, is a respected and leading academic. He has termed these allegations a ‘conspiracy’ against me. He also mentioned that the case should not even have been entertained under the current HEC policy, which states: “Old cases before the announcement of plagiarism policy i.e., September 27, 2007 shall not be taken up if the concerned authors are not claiming the credit in any way for the paper alleged to be plagiarised.”
In taking up this case, the HEC is, in fact, violating its own policy. It is obvious that there is a witch-hunt being conducted against me by vested interests to block my efforts to be reappointed as HEC chairperson on merit. Everyone knows of the principled stand I took against fake degree holders and against fake universities, and that I stood for an autonomous and federal HEC. During my tenure, the HEC strengthened academics and quality assurance and as a result, seven universities from Pakistan are now ranked among the top 250 universities of Asia.
I became a fully tenured professor of electrical and computer engineering at SUNY Buffalo, New York, in 1992, 12 years before the paper in question was published and have hundreds of research publications to my credit. Any academic with common sense would know I have nothing to gain from a single non-recognised publication. However, The Express Tribune seems to have clearly played into the hands of vested interests, including fake degree holders and fake universities, which have started a campaign against me by tarnishing my credibility.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 31st, 2014.
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COMMENTS (27)
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In my opinion, people like Dr Abdus Salam, Dr Ata-ur-Rehman, Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy and Dr Javaid Laghari and the real "Ulemaa" of this country. But unfortunately this nation doesn't give respect to such great intellectuals due to religious, political, ethnic and sometimes personal differences. What a pathetic nation we are!
Dr Leghari is a man of character..........such innocent lapses can occur from any PhD supervisor who is guiding a number of MS/PhD students. As the learned Professor has not gained anything from that one unrecognized journal publication..........the case against him is dismissed.He needs to be appointed the next Chairman HEC to block the fake degree holders in our parliament..........!!!!!!
If the paper was insignificant, and the journal equally insignificant -- even by "Pakistani standards" as Dr Javaid Laghari claims -- why did he include it into his CV? He claims to have HUNDREDS of research publications, which, even Nobel Laureates do not have. I suspect one has to unearth and dissect the originality of all "hundreds" of publications from an old CV of Laghari.
This is a clear-cut case of plagiarism.
You say that the journal is not of note even by Pakistani standards yet you 'innocently' included it in your CV. DId you have nothing noteworthy to include which led you to include a paper you seemingly did not even contribute to?
Only the educated class, specially who have some exposure of research can better understand your defense. WE ARE SORRY sir! You rocked and Inshallah you'll keep on rocking. ET must apologize.
I doubt why this discussion is going to be prolonged when the head of probe committee for this particular case, Dr. Iqrar Ahmed Khan Vice Chancellor Agriculture University Faisalabad has termed the whole process as victimization against Dr. Laghari who is one of the reputed academicians and contributed a lot for strengthening higher education sector. His contribution has been recognized globally. We should learn to respect other reputed academicians who have done a lot for this country. Why this issue is being raised as the process for selection for new chairman HEC is going on?. Certainly, to damage his strong candidateship. The certain forces are involved in it who do not want a strong chairman HEC. Please take care of your country and learn how to respect our teachers, academicians.
I am an academician and I have been publishing in high profile as well as low profile journals. The rule of thumb is that I would never put my name as a co-author in any publication to which I have not contributed. Personally, if I have helped less than 20 hours of my active time, there is a special section of acknowledgements where my name would go. In Dr. Laghari's case, interesting bit is claiming for the credit which he didn't deserve and secondly unable to recognise plagiarised piece of research in his field of expertise. If you have to rely on electronic softwares to find plagiarism in your own of expertise than you should not be teaching or working in academia. Moreover, plagirism policy should be implemented after 2007 is a very hilarious idea in its own right. Plagiarism is stealing whether law was made later does not matter. It is not a truth and reconciliation commission Mr. Laghari. Guilty as charged and well done! Express Tribune.
@Riaz, ET reporter.. you should file another story now, if, you have proof he has stolen words
ok, so didn't know about it, but is in CV? is a magazine article, but in CV is Journal Paper? sorry to say, but seems all these ppp types are the same. and even if he is right, he should know that once he made decision to join ppp, he gave up all hopes of having credibility among pakistanis again. now that it comes full circle he shouldn't be surprised
knowing the fact that the said journal was/is of sub-standard or below par of Pakistani standards, and he also knew that he was not the co-author of the said paper but just helped the author to in collection of data, then why Mr.Laghari put the same paper on his CV...Second why Mr.Laghari disowned the same paper once it was found plagiarized.
I stand by my story
Nothing was misleading and ask the authorities which conducted this probe. I will not get into the details as I just reported what were the findings of investigation body. The "article" was published in 2004 and the co-author used name without his knowledge as said by Laghari. But will he reply to the point that he came to HEC in 2009 and his CV is still there. The research paper is at #40 in REFEREED JOURNAL PAPERS category while he said it was a magazine article. Why this hypocrisy? Here is the link to the CV from HEC site and don't call it an "innocent oversight" http://www.hec.gov.pk/InsideHEC/AboutHEC/Incharge-Of-HEC/Documents/Full%20CV2012.pdf
One small question: if Mr. Leghari had nothing to do with paper other than contribution to the data, if his name was used without his knowledge and consent, why did he put it on his CV? He says he took it off his CV as soon as he found out it was largely plagiarized, but the fact that he put it on his CV as part of his work and accomplishments says something clearly.
No reason to dispute Dr Laghari pleading innocent, and I believe him when he says he had stronger credentials than a mere paper in unrecognised journal authored by someone else. But, it is ironic to see a higest HEC ex-official falling victim to HEC's own flawed policies. It is well known that geting promotions, grants, awards on the basis of fradulent papers is a norm rather than exception among Pakistani academia. I have seen very senior people with hundreds of pages of CVs listing hundreds of such publications like the one Dr Leghari is refusing to own. These senior professors actively hunt for co-authors who are willing to share authorship of whatever garbage they write and are able to get it published in whatever crapy periodical. Plagiarism is one thing, and after years of running key-matching database softwares, our these professors have invented ways to circumvent being caught. More serious thing is the papers with fabricated data which no software in the world is able to detect. I have seen reputed (i.e true) professors heading large research groups in europe and US, with state of the art technical facilities, employing scores of graduate students and postdocs, and multimillion grants at hands, are hardly able to publish, say 10 papers in a year. And our fradulent professors, with miniscule research resources, having no lab facilities, no man power, and no technical resorces, list hundreds of fake publications/year on their fat CVs. And worrying thing is they get huge recognition in terms of promotions, positions etc. Fact is they perform no research at all, and with the help of their equally dishonest students who are in hurry to get a crappy PhD degree, manage to carefully build for themselves an image of well renowned scientists. And what is behind all this? Flawed policies of HEC, which somehow came to belive since its inception that producing large number of PhDs and publishing hundreds thousands of papers in a year is the reason first world became so developed.
The article is a partial explanation but does not explain how the article came to be included by Dr. Laghari in his c.v. This is not an oversight but dishonesty to include articles that include a subject that he did not review or participate. He should apologize for this as a competent and honest scientist. He should also review his c.v and remove any additional "oversights".
Why is ET picking up this issue now when this was already in the news 6 months ago? Are we seeing yellow journalism here ?? http://www.dawn.com/news/1037685/hec-clarifies The HEC has already clarified that Laghari was not involved according to Dawn dated 23 august 2013.
@anonymus lol
Oh boy, old habits died hard.
An arxiv version of the same paper is still available on http://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0405105.
If the plagiarist was so honest then he can easily request arxiv to remove his name or the paper itself.
Saying that he already had quality papers before this paper is no excuse. Many people don't mind extra papers to beef up their publication list and sadly don't care about the quality or ethical aspects.
The fact that ET allowed Dr Laghari to defend him and take a stand against the newspaper itself is a great thing - I am really pleased that ET is giving space to its own criticism. Only time will tell who is on the right here, but the fact that there is space to criticize is a great sign of maturity!
---used my name as co-author. --- he put my name on the paper as an acknowledgment. --The paper eventually got listed in my CV — an innocent oversight as there was no vested interest involved because the journal was not of a notable stature even by Pakistani standards. --He replied by email saying that he had added my name without my permission and that I had no contribution in the paper.
One can read the contradiction in your own words. Your defense of I had no knowledge is not accepted as you had full control over your own CV. As long as it served your purpose you had no qualm of having that paper on your CV to increase number of publication by one and now you are distancing from that paper. All co-authors have to sign a consent form prior to publications in scientific journal that it is OK to add your name and you acknowledge that you have made a significant contribution to that article. It is a standard disclosure policy of recognized or not so recognized journals. Verdict: Guilty as charged.
I can imagine that certain people do not want to see Javaid Laghari to be re-elected, because he implemented anti-plagiarism policies that were able to expose charlatans. Not far-fetched to think some people are holding a grudge against the man. If we would check for plagiarism in retrospect, of Pakistani academics, we would find massive fraud among the works. Some people are scared or angry. They want the doctor to pay and have concocted this conspiracy to derail and defame him. That is what it is looking like.
Sounds like a reasonable defence, Bin Shah's blog however was awfully apologetic.
Though I was very sceptical in the beginning, this seems to be a plausible explanation.
Mr. Laghari hits Bulls Eye. It's great to see him responding. ET should beware next time.
Do you want to explain how this op-ed has content lifted from Forbes and Wikipedia? http://tribune.com.pk/story/656939/can-online-learning-help-pakistan/