CIIT pro-rector sacked over plagiarism of PhD thesis

The Board of Governors of Comsats Institute of Information Technology (CIIT) terminated on Friday its pro-rector Haroon Rashid who was proved to have plagiarised his PhD thesis.

The decision is second of its kind in the country in the last 15 years where one of the top figures of a university has been removed from service over plagiarism charges.

With this decision, Rashid is also likely to be removed from National Testing Service (NTS) which he was heading as Chief Executive Officer.

The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) had removed Dr Azmat Hayat Khan as vice-chancellor of the University of Peshawar in 2011 when he was proved to have plagiarised his book.

According to sources privy to the development, the BoG took the unanimous decision in its meeting on one-point agenda in Islamabad that the pro-rector be removed from his post.

Rashid was given two chances to personally clarify his position. The BoG in its meeting on June 11 had suspended Rashid and also cancelled his three months leave.

The BoG gave him June 17 as the second chance to clear his position in personal hearing but he did not show up following which the members unanimously decided to terminate their pro-rector who has worked at CIIT for over two years. He was also ex-officio member of the BoG.

Preston University has also taken multiple hits to its reputation over the past few years. Recently, the HEC’s quality assurance team had directed the varsity to shut down their PhD and Mphil programmes, citing various lapses or glaring shortcomings, while warning that the degrees of students enrolled in or after 2014 would not be attested or verified.

The university has Kohat as principal seat in its charter issued by the government of K-P but despite repeated notices and reminders from HEC, the varsity had not bothered to develop its main campus instead kept focusing on sub-campus in Islamabad.