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Landmark
case of professor vs. student
Muhammad Ahmad Noorani
Islamabad:A landmark intellectual
property rights case has gone to the Islamabad High Court in which
an M.Phil student of the Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) has accused
his dean of faculty and professor of stealing his research paper and
getting it published in an internationally-circulated journal in his
own name.
Slated to be heard in June, the case
in IHC places former chairman of Defence and Strategic Studies, dean
of Faculty of Social Sciences and professor of Quaid-i-Azam
University, Dr. Zafar Iqbal Cheema, in the dock pitted against his
own student, Mirza Masood Akbar, who has accused the professor of
stealing his paper, publishing it and denying him access.
The student fears that his research
work was in danger of being misplaced or even replaced from
university examination record and says his petition has not been
heard by the IHC in the last four hearings.
Dr. Cheema has, however, termed the
issue as a campaign to malign him by some of his opponents at QAU
and claims that the research paper-article published in the summer
of 2008 in the journal of the Institute of Regional Studies (IRS)
was purely his own work and research and thus was published under
his name. The professor claims that the student, Mirza Masood Akbar,
was incapable of writing ‘even two lines’.
An investigation by ‘The News’,
however, reveals facts which have not been explained and involve not
only the IRS and its editors, detailed exchanges of e-mails and even
a world renowned expert on Pakistan, Steve Cohen, who is based in
Washington and who reviewed the research paper before it was
published.
According to details, Masood, a
student of the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies, in
connection with the course ‘Seminar on Strategic Policies of Great
Powers’ offered in M.Phil, second semester, submitted a mandatory
required seminar paper titled ‘Indo-Pak Strategic Culture’ to his
supervisor Dr. Cheema in June 2008. Dr Cheema awarded ‘A’ grade to
Masood and extended co-authorship to Masood on the basis that he,
the professor, would help improve the article to have it published
internationally, an offer which was accepted by Masood as he had
invested three years of research in it.
Documents and evidence available with
‘The News’ show that Dr. Cheema sent the article to IRS in the last
week of June last year without any improvement or addition. The
e-mail correspondence between Dr. Cheema and IRS clearly shows that
the article was basically a research paper of the student that was
to be published as a joint publication.
As per HEC recommendations and policy
of IRS, review of any such research article by at least two
independent referees including one foreigner was mandatory. The
foreign-referee, Stephen P Cohen from US, in his peer review sent to
IRS on July 12 did not award it full marks but termed the research
work of the student as ‘little new contribution’ and recommended it
for publication marginally along with suggestions and some
corrections.
After Stephen Cohen’s
recommendations, Dr. Cheema informed his student Mirza Masood, to
improve his work as per Cohen’s suggestions. In one e-mail Dr.
Cheema wrote to Masood that he will also like to see it before it
was sent to IRS. Masood improved the article as per Cohen’s
recommendations and sent it to Dr. Cheema.
However, when the article came out it
only had Dr. Cheema’s name as the sole author. According to the
evidence, the article was sent to the journal with only minor
changes where it was published after addition of an opening
paragraph by the editor.
While talking to ‘The News’, Dr.
Cheema denied any foul play and termed the whole episode a campaign
to defame his good name. He said that Masood as his student had
worked on the material provided by him and the article was his own
work. Dr. Cheema says Masood had withdrawn from the thesis and had
intended to work on another thesis so he had got the article
published in his name.
Masood, however,
claims that Dr. Cheema is not an expert in the field of strategic
culture because his field is nuclear studies. “I had studied the
theory of this subject from Dr. Zafar Nawaz Jaspal,” Masood’s
petition in the IHC claims.
Besides the documentary evidence and
e-mail correspondence between Dr. Cheema, Masood and IRS editor,
telephonic conversations between Dr. Cheema and Masood made after
publication of the article reveal that Dr. Cheema had told Masood
that he was ready to make amends and write to the IRS that the
article was in fact a joint publication.
Dr. Cheema is also found telling
Masood that he had received a cheque from IRS on January 9 and he is
ready to split the amount with him. Masood wanted nothing except his
name on the publication.
Masood also moved an application to
editorial board of the IRS apprising them of the situation along
with all documentary evidence and requesting that the article be
re-published in his name to which he received no response. He also
applied to his Department at QAU and an Anti-Plagiarism and Fairness
Committee was constituted to probe the issue. Dr. Cheema, meantime,
moved a petition in the court of Senior Civil Judge, Islamabad, on
February 2009 praying to stop proceedings of the committee.
The editor of the IRS journal Abul
Barakat, when approached by ‘The News,’ acknowledged the issue but
refused to comment on it. However, a senior official of IRS while
talking to ‘The News’ confirmed that Dr. Zafar Cheema in his
correspondence with him had always mentioned that the article was a
research work of his student Masood and that it would be a joint
publication.
On February 25, 2009 Masood
approached the Islamabad High Court. His petition was first fixed
for March 4 but was adjourned. It was again fixed for March 26 when
notices were served to Dr. Cheema, the IRS editor and the
Quaid-i-Azam University and record from both the IRS and QAU was
summoned. Another hearing was scheduled for April 4 but was again
adjourned till April 30. Then no date was fixed but it was expected
to be heard in June.
Umar Farooq, assistant registrar of
IHC, when approached said there is a defined criterion for preparing
the cause list and no one can influence this process.
During all this period a new edition
of the IRS Journal (Autumn-09) has also been published without any
correction and mention of Masood’s name on his article. Even the IRS
website shows Dr. Cheema as the author of the article.
Senior lawyer Athar Minallah after
going through the case details told ‘The News’ that there cannot be
a more despicable crime in a society if a professor is found
involved in plagiarism. “Any attempt to cover up or protect the
teacher or professor is itself a crime.”
The Dawn Thursday, May 21, 2009
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