Former Delhi University Vice-Chancellor Deepak Pental was forced to spend a few hours in Tihar Jail on Tuesday after a lower court in the city remanded him to judicial custody on complaints of plagiarism made by another professor. However, by evening his lawyers were able to get him bail from the Delhi High Court.
Professor P. Pardha Saradhi, currently with DU’s Environmental Sciences department, has accused Prof. Pental of using a student to misappropriate his research work.
“Between 1995 and 1999, I was heading a research team in Jamia Millia Islamia where we developed genetically modified mustard plants.
A student who completed his Ph.D. under me at this time was employed by Prof. Pental. In between 2001 and 2004, this student lifted all the work we had done and physically took very hazardous material to Prof. Pental’s lab and started experimenting there,” said Prof. Saradhi.
He added that lifting genetically modified material without proper certificates and transporting them were also against the environmental protection Act, a fact that Prof. Pental was well-aware of.
“Prof. Pental was complicit in the whole [issue], he was the one who made this former student of mine, who still had access to my labs, steal the work,” said Prof. Saradhi, adding that he had been taking the legal route for many years since he was not able to get anything done within the University.
Prof. Pental belongs to the university’s Genetics Department and was the Vice-Chancellor between 2005 and 2010 before which he was the Director of the South Campus.
