Rejoinder: Comsats pro-rector denies plagiarism

With reference to a story published in The Express Tribune which stated that the PhD thesis of Comsats pro-rector was found plagiarised, the official concerned has said the degree was verified by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in October 2007. The said story is misleading and passes a unilateral judgment without knowing the complete facts. The matter is yet to be investigated and concluded by the relevant quarters as required by HEC policy, says a statement by Dr Haroon Rashid. The said PhD thesis was approved before implementation of HEC’s plagiarism policy and introduction of Turnitin service of the commission, explained Rashid. Initiation of any such investigation [into plagiarism] as per HEC rules is not to be made public before the final decision of the plagiarism standing committee of the relevant university within 90 days, and is then verified by the HEC committee as per time-bound SOPs of the plagiarism policy, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 19^th, 2015.