Nagpur: The Nagpur University (NU) is yet to receive any reply from senior academician Dr
Vedprakash Mishra, who was served a show cause notice last month in an alleged case of
plagiarism. The
NU had set January 5 as deadline for him to reply.
In its meeting on December 21, the Board of Examinations and Evaluation (BoEE) led by Vice chancellor SP Kane had decided to serve the notice to Mishra following media reports.
As on Wednesday, Mishra said he was yet to receive any letter or notice from the NU. "I have not received any letter. It is not a secret notice that I would try to hide it. I won't play hide and seek," Mishra said.
Kane, who is out of town, couldn't be contacted. BoEE director Neeraj Khaty, who is also member secretary of the board, refused to comment on the issue.
Mishra, who has been taking on the Kane and ProVC Pramod Yeole since March, was served the notice over alleged plagiarism in his postgraduate diploma on 'Gandhian Thoughts' thesis submitted three decades ago.
After Mishra submits his reply, the BoEE members would examine the reply in the next 15 days. "On January 24, Mishra will have to appear before the BoEE," Kane had said.
In 1991, the then Academic council member Rambhau Tupkar had alleged that Mishra, who is the chairman of NU's advisory committee and former management council member, had used unfair means to complete his thesis in the year 1987.
In 1992, the Ratnaparkhi committee submitted its report. According to it, Mishra had in his field report copied from RV Rao's 1969 book word for word.
On Oct 9, 1992, the then management council approved the Ratnaparkhi report. However, Mishra had challenged the report's findings in civil court.
On Nov 24, 2013, the court rejected Mishra's claim, upholding the Ratnaparkhi's report.
However, there have been many other plagiarism works but the university has not taken any action in those cases till date.
The Pangarkar panel, appointed to probe serious allegations of irregularities in NU's polls along with those of forging of documents by some candidates, had submitted its report to former vice chancellor Vilas Sapkal in February 2012. The one-member panel was constituted on April 16 2011 after TOI, through a series of reports, exposed how politics had played its part in NU polls for Senate and Board of Studies.
