PESHAWAR, July 28: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday directed the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to continue with the inquiry regarding the case of alleged plagiarism by the University of Peshawar's vice-chancellor, but restrained it from taking any adverse action against him.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel conducted preliminary hearing in a writ petition filed by the vice-chancellor, Dr Azmat Hayat Khan, challenging the holding of an inquiry by the HEC regarding the allegations of plagiarism.

The bench summoned the executive director of HEC for the next hearing with the direction to produce all the relevant record including a letter written by the concerned writer about whom it was alleged that from her book certain portions were copied by the vice-chancellor in his PhD thesis.

A university teacher, Mohammad Zubair, himself facing charges of having a dubious LLM degree and is presently under suspension, had sent a letter to the HEC wherein he had charged the vice-chancellor of plagiarism.

He alleged that Dr Hayat copied in his book tilted 'The Durand land: its geo strategic importance', published by the Area Study Centre, University of Peshawar, and Hanns Seidel Foundation, some passages from the book 'Pak-Afghan Relations', written by Dr Kulwant Kaur of Jammu University, Jammu, and published by Deep and Deep publications in 1985.

The vice-chancellor has challenged the jurisdiction of the HEC in dealing with cases of plagiarism. He contended that the HEC could not entertain and adjudicate upon any alleged act of plagiarism hence the very initiation of proceedings to this effect would have no backing from the law laid down on the subject hence liable to interference in the exercise of constitutional jurisdiction of the court.

Senior advocate Abdul Samad Khan appeared for the petitioner and contended that there existed nothing in the HEC Ordinance itself on basis of which the commission could take cognizance of the matter.

Mr Samad Khan contended even if for the sake of argument it was presumed that the matter was in the domain of the HEC, even then as per HEC plagiarism policy, cases prior to 2007, the year in which the policy was framed, could not be opened, as such, degree of the petitioner being of 1990 is prior to the coming into force of the policy hence could not become subject matter of proceedings on the alleged ground of plagiarism.

He contended that the entire process smacked of mala fide as the petitioner did his PhD in 1990 whereas the charges had now been leveled against him in 2011.

He contended that the charges against the petitioner were baseless and no fruitful results would ensue even if the case proceeds further. He argued that in the HEC Ordinance, no penalty was prescribed even if plagiarism was proven on the face of the record so much so that a single word was not forthcoming in entire ordinance where from one could infer that anyone indulging in plagiarism could be visited with penalties.

During the course of proceedings, the bench observed that when a student could be banned for many years if found indulged in cheating, why action should not be taken against an officer serving against a senior position if his degree was fake?