HC seeks response from Saradhi on plea of former DU VC

The Delhi High Court Monday directed Professor P. Pardha Saradhi to respond within four weeks to a plea of former Delhi University vice chancellor Deepak Pental, who was sent to Tihar jail in a plagiarism case filed against him by Saradhi.

Justice V.P. Vaish sought the response from Saradhi after he was given the full copy of the details of the petition filed by Pental.

The court also issued fresh notice to K.V.S.K. Prasad, former PhD student under Saradhi, who is currently out of India.

The high court was hearing the plea filed by Pental against a trial court order sending him to jail in connection with the complaint filed by Saradhi accusing him of plagiarising his paper on biotechnology.

After his arrest, Pental had moved a bail plea in the high court which ordered his release later in the day Nov 25.

In his complaint filed in the trial court, Saradhi had alleged that one Prasad, who used to be a PhD 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 A gene'.

A professor of environment biology at DU, Saradhi said he had allowed Prasad to use the findings of the result obtained in his PhD thesis.

He alleged that Pental had 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 PhD thesis.

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

-- Indo-Asian News Service

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