HC exempts Pental from appearance in plagiarism case

The Delhi High Court Monday exempted former Delhi University vice chancellor Deepak Pental from personal appearance in trial court Feb 28 in a plagiarism case filed against him by P. Pardha Saradhi.

Justice Sunil Gaur granted the exemption, taking into consideration the application filed by Pental to allow him not to appear before the trial court Feb 28.

Pental's counsel told the court that the allegations against him was that of plagiarism which is a bailable offence.

Pental further contended that he has never skipped any court hearing in the plagiarism case.

On the other hand, Saradhi's counsel vehemently opposed pental's plea, saying: "Why does he not want to appear before court."

Saradhi, a professor of environment biology at Delhi University, had filed complaint against Pental accusing him of plagiarising his paper on biotechnology.

In November, the trial court had sent Pental to jail, however, the high court ordered his release later.

In his complaint filed in the trial court, Saradhi had alleged that Prasad, who used to be a Ph.D student under him, helped Pental copy the findings of his 1999 research project 'Production and characterisation of osmotic stress-tolerant transformants of Brassica juncea with bacterial code gene'.

Saradhi said he had allowed Prasad to use the findings of the result obtained in his Ph.D thesis.

He alleged that Pental subsequently engaged Prasad and started working on the same plant "Brassica (which belongs to the mustard family)", but using a different technique.

Saradhi contended that the detailed progress report submitted by Pental on the project had "copied verbatim" a major part of the summary and conclusion of Prasad's Ph.D thesis.

On the other hand, Pental, who was also the vice-chancellor of Delhi University 2005-2010, had said an expert committee constituted to examine the complaint of plagiarism lodged by Saradhi had exonerated him in 2009.