HC issues rule over DU teacher Samia Rahman's demotion

 

Live Correspondent: The High Court has issued a rule asking why the Dhaka University authorities' decision to demote Mass Communication and Journalism department's teacher Samia Rahman will not be declared illegal.

Besides, the High Court has directed the authorities concerned to submit the DU probe committee's report on plagiarism in a research work by Samia Rahman within the next three weeks.

A High Court bench, comprising Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice M Mostafizur Rahman, issued the rule on Sunday responding to writ petition filed by Samia Rahman.

The authorities concerned including the DU vice-chancellor were asked to reply to the rule within the next four weeks.

Barrister Hasan MS Azim appeared on behalf of Samia Rahman at the court, while Deputy Attorney General Bipul Bagmar argued on behalf of the state.

On August 31 last, Samia Rahman submitted the writ petition challenging the DU authorities' decision to demote her.

Earlier on January 28 last, DU teacher Samia Rahman was demoted as punishment on charge of adopting plagiarism in research.

The DU syndicate demoted associate professor Samia Rahman to assistant professor lowering her position by one step.

Besides, assistant professor Omar Faruque of the Department of Islamic History and Culture, was demoted to the post of lecturer on charge of adopting plagiarism in his PhD thesis. His degree was also cancelled.

The decisions were taken at a meeting of the syndicate held with vice-chancellor Prof M Akhtaruzzaman in the chair. As the charges against the teachers were proved, the DU syndicate formed two tribunals to decide their punishment.

The committee alleged that an eight-page reseach article, titled 'A New Dimension of Colonialism and Pop Culture: A Case Study of the Cultural Imperialism' co-authored by Samia Rahman and Syed Mahfuzul Huque Marzan, a lecturer of the Department of Criminology, was published in the DU's 'Social Science Review' journal in December 2016.

It was alleged almost five pages of the reseach article were fully copied from an article, titled "The Subject and Power" written by French philosopher Michel Foucault, which was published in the Critical Inquiry, a journal of the University of Chicago, in 1982.

In September 2017, the University of Chicago Press informed the Dhaka University authorities in written about the plagiarism.

Not only from Michel Foucault, allegation was also raised against Samia and Marzan that they copied pages after pages from a book, "Culture and Imperialism" written by intellectual Edward Sayeed. In such a situation, the DU syndicate constituted a probe committee with the then DU Pro-VC Prof Nasrin Ahmed as the head.

After a long inquiry into the allegation of plagiarism against Samia and Marzan, the committee submitted its report. As the allegations were proved in the inquiry, a tribunal was formed on October 29, 2020 with Prof Md Rahmat Ullah, Dean of the Faculty of Law and Syndicate Member, as convener to propose punishment for their academic offence.

The final decision to demote Samia Rahman and Syed Mahfuzul Huque Marzan was taken at a syndicate meeting after the submission of a proposal of punishment by the tribunal to the Dhaka University administration.

Dhaka, 05 September (campuslive24.com)//BIT

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