Delhi High Court has issued notice to the Education Minister, JNU, UGC and AICTE on a petition alleging systemic misappropriation of PhD research at JNU through arbitrary supervisor changes, gift authorship, and regulatory lapses.
The petitioner, Prof Rajeev Kumar, former JNU faculty, contends that two of his doctoral students Akhilesh Rawat (Asstt Prof, Bennett University) and Om Prakash (Asstt Prof, Galgotias University)—wrongfully transferred his research to senior academics.
Om Prakash further gifted/sold unpublished papers to paper-mill operatives in India, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and USA. Despite admissions of misconduct and assurances of retraction, JNU shielded the accused instead of initiating inquiry.
Prof Rajeev Kumar supervised both the above students from August 2018 to March 2024, as Integrated MPhil-PhD students. Their PhD theses were completed in Dec 2023. Subsequently, JNU arbitrarily reassigned their supervision to an uninvolved faculty member, despite nothing remaining to supervise.
This provision of the JNU PhD Ordinance allowed uninvolved faculty to claim full credit for completed theses, a practice the petitioner contends violates Article 14 (right to equality) and Article 21 (right to dignity and livelihood) of the Constitution. JNU did not apply the same provision to three other PhD students similarly supervised by him (Pg 8, 187-94)
Further, Om Prakash transferred three unpublished research papers, co-authored with the Petitioner, to seven paper-mill operators in India and abroad. These were published with false authorships and multi-institutional affiliations. Though the accused admitted misconduct and assured retraction, JNU shielded them by manipulating records instead of taking action.
Instead of enforcing accountability, JNU removed the Petitioner, enabling a systemic cover- up. The case underscores how weak regulations at UGC and AICTE have enabled gift authorship, gift supervision and research theft to proliferate unchecked. UGC’s Anti-Plagiarism Regulations (2018) are ineffective—easily bypassed by AI/paraphrasing tools and blind to plagiarism in non-textual elements (figures, algorithms, tables, graphs).
“This is not only about my research — it is about the systemic collapse of accountability. When supervisors are replaced after thesis completion, and unpublished research stolen for paper-mills, credit is stolen, integrity is lost, and the HEIs ranking is compromised. Unless strict norms are enforced India as a ViswaGuru in Academics is a fraud, “ Prof Rajeev Kumar.
He sought corrective action by restoring the Petitioner’s research and recognition; Constitution of a Technical Expert Committee (TEC) to investigate the case; framing of PhD related regulations by UGC and AICTE on authorship, supervision, and academic misconduct — addressing gift authorship; gift supervision, strengthening anti-plagiarism regulations to detect both textual and non-textual plagiarism (figures, algorithms, tables, graphs) and to address AI-driven misconduct.