The involvement of Asst. Professors, Associate Professors and Full Professors in plagiarism and replicating the academic work of others to gain academic promotions and to perpetuate existing jobs practiced within universities. How?

-Pramod Acharya: Centre for Investigative Journalism-Nepal

In 2070 B.S., the University Grants Comission (UGC) charged Prof. Dr. Kedarnath Ghimire, the then head of the Central Department of Chemistry, Tribhuvan University (TU) with a serious academic allegation of plagiarism, blacklisting him to apply for UGC funds in future. But, within two years, he was exonerated from the charge. A team of three including him filed a case in the Kathmandu District Court that made the UGC defensive because it had neither ‘procedural documents’ to punish people involved in plagiarism, nor the decision was time framed. Eventually, UGC had to ‘give in’ to the accused. While he (Dr. Ghimire) was still on the “blacklist”, the then Sushil Koirala government recruited him as a member of the TU Service Commission.

The reason behind Dr. Ghimire being blacklisted is interesting. A small group of professors had secured the research grant from the UGC.They presented their findings in the paper titled “Chemical Modification of Natural Polymers and their Applications in Best Drinking Water”. This paper was supposed to be an orginal research article but as it turned out, Dr. Ghimire presented the same data from his previous article published by Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST). It was not referenced anywhere that the data were taken from his previous paper. Along with Dr. Ghimire, two other researchers in that research group were Prof. Dr. Meghraj Pokharel and Prof. Dr. Dev Bahadur Khadka, professors at Central Department of Chemistry, TU. Dr. Khadka himself is found to be involved in the malpractices of plagiarism. In 2011 bulletin published by Nepal Chemical Society, he has copied the exact paragraphs from Nobel Prize press release, without any citation.

In the meantime, the complaints were loudged against Dr. Ghimire and service commission in Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) for the irregularities seen in the examination for the Asst. professor post. Professor Ram Biswas Shah who was speaking on behalf from Service Commission had disclosed all the wrongdoings of Dr. Ghimire in a statement to CIAA. He said “Dr. Ghimire had directed to ‘top up marks to pass examinees’ on Asst. professor post examination.”

Shah admitted that he also raised themarks to his son-in-law Amarnath Shah. In this episode of irregularity, Prof. Dr. Chetraj Bhatta at Central Department of Maths was also involved, who used to make questions and check the answer sheets as well. He was even found to be assigning marks to students who would just copy questions in answer sheet.  

According to the CIAA, Prof. Dr. Ishwor Chandra Dutta, the then president of TU Service Commission and Dr. Ghimire were working hand in glove in the entire irregularity from preparing questions to examining them. Now this case is running in the special court. The exam held in Falgun and Chaitra of 2072 is an example of TUSC’s sheer negligence and failure to live up to the promise of promoting academic honesty. TUSC had announced an examination for assistant professors through open and special internal competitions where over 1500 seats were to be filled. At that time, some professors were found to be distributing written answersheets to the examinees before the exam took place.

After knowing these malpractices happening inside the TU Service Commission, we moved to investigate further in the Tribhuvan University and Nepal Sanskrit University. We met many professors and universities employees there who helped us to reveal deep and rampant practices..

Professors in Plagiarism

Prof. Bhavani Shankar Acharya is a professor at the Central Department of Management, TU who was promoted to the full professor from the service commission one and a half year ago, and teaches the courseworks under ‘General Management’. Acharya has also published books, several articles and journals. One of the books written by him is the Foundation of Human Resource Management. Many parts of this book have been copied from other books and research papers but has been presented as his own with very least citations. For instance, the pages 5 and 6 of his book are plagiarised from Human Resource Management: Strategic Analysis Texts and Cases written by Rajkumar. Similarly, the subchapter “Job Analysis Information (page 68)” is plagiarised from the book Human Resource Management, written by Gary Desler and Biji Warakki. In some places, he has made an endeavor to paraphrase but it didn’t suffice. Language and written style oforiginal texts are obvious in some places and very fews words have been changed.  Our attempt to take his feedback on this case failed as he told us that he is ill and was on rest taking rest.

Achyut Gyawali, another associate professor at the Department of Management, TU has been also involved in plagiarism:  in his 2013 paper “Foreign Direct Investment in Nepal” published in The Nepalese Management Review, a journal published by Central Department of Management, he has presented the conclusions from “Investment Policy Review” published by the United Nations as his own. When asked for a response, Gyawali said “It was produced long time back and forgot the details can’t say anything about it now.”

It is not just the Department of Management that is involved with plagiarism cases. For example, the book titled Business Statistics, jointly written by former department head of the Central Department of Statistics Prof. Dr. Ajaya Bikram Sthapit, Shankar Prasad Khanal and Rashindra Prasad Yadav, they have copied the contents from the books Fundamentals of Business Statistics by David Rey Anderson and Sampling Techniques in Educational Research by E. Dhivyadeepa and some websites. When we asked Sthapit, one of the authors of the book, he said, “I am not the only one to author, I will ask co-authors how it happened.”

Prof.Dr. Meena Vaidya Malla is the head of the Political Science Department at TU. The research paper titled “Nepal’s Problems of Political Culture in Transition Management” published in Journal of Political Science in 2015, is also a plagiarised paper. For instance, the first paragraph of the article is lifted from Bishnu Raj Upreti’s presentation paper titled “Management of Post Conflict Political Transition in Nepal: Challenges and Oppurtunities” and Devraj Dahal’s article Nepal’s “Problem of Order and Political Culture”. “I have tried to mention the sources of other authors while preparing the article”, Malla said, “there might be errors, I will correct next time.” In the first sight, it might appear that her paper is meticulously prepared, investing good effort while writing but a closer look will reveal that it is more like a compilation of many articles without originality.

From Journal to Dissertation

Many professors in the campuses associated with TU are also found involved in this practice of academic dishonesty. For instance, Dr. Kamal Maiya Pradhan, an associate professor at Trichendra Campus, has plagiarized her journal article “Significances of Cultural Tourism in Nepal” where she has lifted an entire section from the First Environmental Trekking Pvt. Ltd.’s website and copied another paragraph from the book titled Fundamentals of Tourism and Travel by L.K. Singh, without giving due credit.

Krishna Prasad Amgai’s article published in the journal Nepalese Journal of Development and Rural Studies published by the Rural Development Central Department is another example of plagiarized journal writing. In the journal article titled “Impact of Community Forestry on Dhudhkoshi Community Frest User Group Chitwan”, Amgai has plagiarised the abstract from another article. He has copied the several sentences of the journal articles from the research paper “Potential Options for Economic and Financial Aspects for Forestry Sector” by Resham Dangi, Anuja Sharma, Keshab Khanal. He has also plagiarised from the “case study booklet” published by Nigeria’s Sattoam Initiative.

In his 2013 atricle “Inflation Impact on Salary Tax Rate Structure in Nepal” published in The Nepalese Management Review, the former dean of the faculty of management at Pokhara University, Karna Bir Poudyal, has plagiarised the conclusion section from the paper “The Evolution of the Nepalese Income Tax System” by an economist Rup Bahadur Khadka for economic review of Nepal Rastra Bank eighteen years ago. When asked for his response, he did not want to talk about this. He said, “I cannot tell you now what exactly happened while writing”.

Dr. Vishnu Prasad Pokharel is a lecturer at Nepal Sanskrit University. He receieved his PhD in 2016 with a dissertattion on “Impact of Vedanata on William Butler Yeats’ Poems”. In his dissertation, he has plagiarised several subchapters from various unauthorized web portals, journals and books. Pokharel has copied the entire contents of Sardar M. Anwaruddin’s journal article “Emerson’s Passion for Indian Thoughts”, published in the International Journal of Literature and Arts in 2013. Similarly, he has also copied a few paragraphs from the essay “A Comparative Study of the Commentries on the Bhrama Sutras” written by Swami Visheshwarananda and “Bhagwat Gita” translated by Swami Siwananda but the sourcs are not quoted.

Pokhrel has borrowed the paragraphs from the websites of Vedic Society of Portland, the Adwait Vedant Center, Hare Krishna Temple Portal, and others. The plagirarism is so visible that he he has not even cared for typos, fonts and other mechanics of academic writing while lifting paragraphs. When we asked for his response, Pokharel said, “I had no motive to steal the contents. If Imade any errors unintentionally, I am ready to correct it.”

Non-Original Disseration and Switiching Superviser

The PhD dissertation of Baburam Khanal, an associate professor at Saraswati Campus, is another example of how non-original dissertations are being accepted by the university. In his disseratation titled “Cultural and Linguistic Loss In Bharti Mukherjee and VVS Naipaul’s and Jhumpa Lahiri’s Characters”, he has copied the entire sections from many journals without mentioning the source. Plagiarism is so rampant that, for example, he has lifted 19 pages (page 74 through 93) without any source.He has prepared a chapter of his dissertation by lifting from thethree paperswritten by foreign authors Kumar Parag, Dr. Deepak Kumar and Mehmet Recep without any citation. When asked about this plagiarism, Khanal said “I do not think I have copied like that. I have quoted everybody. “

We asked his PhD supervisor Prof. Dr. Shreedhar Gautam on why did he accept this dissertation.  Gautam replied, “I have tried much to stop intellectual theft as long as possible. If it is still done, researcher himself is solely responsible”. Co-supervisor Beerendra Pandey, however, said that he accepted Khanal’s paper because it was satisfactory.

The real story behind the approval of this dissertation is interesting. According to the Dean’s office source, Prof. Dr. Shreedhar Gautam and Prof. Dr. Anirudra Thapa were assigned as supervisor and co-supervisor respectively for his PhD research, four years ago.

However, per the the final dissertation available in Dean’s Office, the co-superviser is Beerendra Pandey, not Anirudra Thapa. When asked for the details, Thapa told us that he could not evaluate Khanal’s dissertation due to the special reasons (that he did not tell us). He said, “I am still not informed whether I am removed from his supervision committee”. According to the university source, “Dean’s Office itself removed co-supervisor Thapa and appointed Pandey as Pandey was an easier option to have the plagiarized dissertation signed”.We also learned from our source that Thapa declined to sign thisduplicate paper once. It is thus understandable that he was looking for an easier co-supervisor to get through it.

Fast Track for PhD

Nepal Sanskrit University is an easier to way to complete doctorate, and to securepromotions, especially for non-PhD assistant and associate professors.As this university does not require MPhil for PhD enrollment, the lectuerers who do not have MPhil degree but in the line of academic promotion seem to be choosing Nepal Sanskrit University as a better option to get through.

According to the provision of Nepal Sanskrit University, only proposals related to Sanskrit philosophy are acceptable for PhD. But the plenty of dissertations are written on subjects that are not related to Sanskrit by any means. In BS 2064, Nandish Prasad Adhikari, the director of University’s Research Center, had relaxed the rules of restricting PhD proposals from non-Sanskrit fields so that Univeristy can now award PhDs in any other field.

“According to the rules, only the researchers interested in Sanskrit related issues for research can get PhD degree from Sanskrit University” said a member of the Research Center of Nepal Sanskrit University, “but the rules have changed since the tenure of Nandish sir and now there is complete chaos”.

After the tenure of the Adhikari, the rules have been changed so that PhD are only offered for Sanskrit related field, however, it is not strictly implemented.  As a result, Sanskrit University has now been providing PhD degrees in the areas like law, rural development, sociology, geography, journalism, education, management and so on.In many researches conducted in these areas, there is no apparentrelationship to Sanskrit. Some of the researches, however tangentially, do cover the Sanskrit.

Awarding PhD degrees by the university in areas that are not taught in its academic program may me helpful in inflating CVs of some but it is unlikely that it positively contributes to country’s academica, many academics say. When asked about the increasing preference to Nepal Sanskrit University especially of the non-PhD teachers at TU, Dr. Laxman Prasad Gautam said, “The first reason to enroll in Sanskrit University is to get an easier degree”. He further said, “It is hard to get PhD degree in TU so many prefer Sanskrit University. And the people who are looking for PhDs only to secure marks in TU Service Commission’s Examination want to go there.” Dr. Kashinath Neupane, the research director of Sanskrit University, also agrees with Gautam. He said, “after getting the PhD degree, they can get more marks in the examination for promotion so that they seek to complete PhD from here.”

A general practice everywhere is that the universities award PhD degrees to the students only if they do research on the subjects/titles which are taught in university at the post-graduate level. Providing PhD degree to the students who did research on the subjects which are not taught in the university is not a good practice.

From BS 2044 to BS2072, there are 133 people who have done PhD from Nepal Sanskrit University, 37 dissertations are at the stage of evaluation ,and 226 research papers are being written.

Other’s book, one Prof.

There may be many motives behind plagiarism but most common seems to be a desire to secure job or promotions within the university system. As per the provision of TU Service Commission, some fixed marks can be reserved for PhD dissertation, textbook, reference book, researcharticle and other research based report in the examination to be lectuerer, associate professor and professor.

“The commission does not test the validity of books, articles and PhD research papers presented to it ” Dr. Madhusudan Subedi, professor at Central Department of Sociology, TU, said “therefore a trend of plagiarising and duplicating others’ publication in own names, securing marks in the examination, and becoming a professor is increasing”.

The duplicate and plagiarised books and journal articles are printed just to secure marks in such examinations. A very limitied copies are produced, so that these works are not available anywhere in the market. The main purpose here is to conceal these works from the public so that their dupicacy could hide. “They secure the ISBN number before the examination date of the service commission,” said one professor at TU in anonymity, “When the examination of the service commission approaches, they publish some fake copies (with fake publishers) of the works and provide them to the commission in hurry.”

According to experts, as there is no mechanism of validating the publications, some applicants of the TU Service Commission presented the guess papers and guide books in examination to secure marks reserved for publication. Some even make a number of books from their own PhD research, presented to the TU Service Commission and grab marks.”Whatever publications submitted by the applicants to the TU Service commission are kept secret”, Professor Subedi said, “the one who can influence the experts team of examination can pass the examination”.

In Trivibhavan University, 439 people completed their PhD from the faculty of humanities and social sciences since BS 2031 to BS 2070.

Only Talk

Although the issue of plagiarism is fairly well debated in Nepal, it seems that the university administrations have done nothing significant to curb such practices. Last year, after the Centre for Investigative Journalism, Nepal published an investigative report about the ‘purchase and sell of dissertations’, TU had formed athree-member monitoring committee led by Prof Dr. Bhim Subedi to investigate and mimimize these irregularities. However, the committee has not functioned properly, Sudha Tripathi, the Rector of the University, admits.  “The committee was formed to makesuggestions on how the rampant plagiarism can be controlled,” said Tripathi, “but the committee did nothing so I am planning to form another committee.”

University Grants Commission (UGC) also appears apathetic to develop control mechanism for plagiarism. The UGC has not passed the procedures to control the plagiarism though the the draft was prepared six months ago. “The only thing remaining to pass the work plan is to sign it”, UGC research director Deepak Kumar Khadka said, “But I do not understand why it has been delayed.”

Devraj Adhikari, Secretary-General of the University Grants Commission, said that the new work plan is’coming soon’ and dismissed the conversation. Meanwhile, the UGC’s ‘academic committee’ and ‘board committee’ meetings have not included the agenda of intellectual dishonesty and plagiarism to dicscuss. The UGC and TU Central Library have publicly floated the idea of purchasingthe plagiarism-checking softwares, but they have remained just the words so far. “Plagiarism is a worldwide problem,” Prof Dr.Tirtha Khaniya, the vice chanceller of the Tribhuvan University, said, “Due to lack of proper laws and structure, it is difficult to control”.