According to the documents available with Business Recorder, the Performance Evaluation Committee of HEC in its meeting held on 12-2-2018 and 23-2-2018 had recommended that as per HEC plagiarism policy punitive action must be taken by terminating Dr Arshad Ali's services. As per the committee's recommendation: "There is a major plagiarism in the paper referred to the news item and other papers mentioned above. It had recommended major penalty against the authors under the HEC plagiarism policy".
During the meeting, 11 major papers were reviewed by Quality Assurance Division through Turnitin and found high similarities index. Keeping in view the recommendations of the HEC plagiarism Standing Committee and Performance Evaluation Committee, it was imperative to implement the decision. A committee comprising of nine vice chancellors from major universities of the country was constituted to further review the process and provide an opportunity of personal hearing to Dr Arshad Ali. The allegation of plagiarism against Dr Ali was established after three consecutive meetings which reviewed his three sample papers out of 26 alleged papers. The opportunity of hearing was also provided to Dr Arshad Ali during the fourth meeting of the high powered committee on April 12, 2018. However, the committee agreed and endorsed the findings that major plagiarism has been committed.
Accordingly, former chairman HEC Dr Mukhtar wrote a letter to the then secretary ministry of federal education and professional training Akbar Hussain Durrani that major plagiarism has proved in research papers of Dr Arshad Ali. "I deem it appropriate to bring this matter into the notice of HEC Controlling Authority and the Ministry may therefore like to submit the summary to the controlling authority of the Higher Education Commission i.e. Prime Minister of Pakistan for necessary orders in this matter," the letter said.
When contacted Minister Federal Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mahmood, he said that he will talk to chairman HEC Tariq Banuri regarding this matter and stressed his hope that the matter will be resolved soon.
According to the spokesperson of the HEC the 18-member Commission of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) will hold a meeting on October 19 and 20, 2018 after a lapse of 32 months.
The Commission will discuss and ratify the pending policy issues, financial problems facing universities and identify ways of moving forward. Key items on the agenda include the steps needed to tighten the policy on plagiarism, finalise high profile plagiarism cases, review of the performance of the Tenure Track System and satisfaction of HEC rules and regulation.
The Commission is a high powered body of HEC which has representation from all provinces of the country. Four of the members are women. The HEC is a national organisation which works in close liaison with the Federal Government as well as the provincial Governments to ensure enhanced access, establish quality parameters, and guide the research agenda towards the national priorities. It relies upon financial support from the Federal Government to fund the recurring and development expenditures of public sector universities.
The meeting will be chaired by Dr Tariq Banuri, Chairman, HEC and attended by Professor Dr Arshad Ali, Executive Director, HEC and renowned academicians including Shahnaz Wazir Ali, President SZABIST, Dr Faisal Bari, Associate Professor, LUMS, Lahore, Engineer Farooq Bazai, VC BUITEMS, Professor Dr Bhawani Shankar Chowdhry, Dean, Faculty of Electrical, Electronics and Computer Engg, MUET, Jamshoro, Dr Naveed A Malik, Rector, Virtual University, Lahore, Dr Sania Nishtar, Dr Javeid Iqbal, VC, University of Balochistan, Quetta, and, Lieutenant General (Retd) Asif Mumtaz Sukhera, former Surgeon General, GHQ, Rawalpindi and senior officials from the Federal and Provincial Governments.