Central Information Commission
Prashant Kumar Sinha vs Ministry Of Statistics & Programme ... on 24 July, 2018
CENTRAL INFORMATION COMMISSION
(Room No.313, CIC Bhawan, Baba Gangnath Marg, Munirka, New Delhi-110067)
Before Prof. M. SridharAcharyulu (Madabhushi Sridhar), CIC
CIC/MP/C/2015/000281
Prashant Kumar Sinha v. PIO, Indian Statistical Institute
Order Sheet: RTI filed on 01.10.2015, CPIO reply - Nil, FAO - Nil, Second appeal filed on
09.12.2015, Hearing on 11.07.2018;
Proceedings on 01.06.2017: Appellant present, respondent authority represented by Mr. A. K.
Biswas, CPIO. Directions issued.
Proceedings on 10.07.2018: Appellant present along with Advocate Mr.ShoumenduMukherji at
CIC, Public Authority represented by CPIO. Mr KrishnenduMukopadhyay from NIC Kolkata:
Date of Decision - 17.07.2018: Disposed of with directions and compensation allowed.
ORDER
FACTS:
1. This RTI request is based on the allegation by a scholar, of his copyright violation and plagiarism by his own professor and another scholar. The scholar-
appellanthasrequested information related to Prof.Bhabani Prasad Sinha's initial draft with all the markings along with the evidence of claimed authorship and its date. The Central Information Commission in its order dated 03.07.15 CIC/MP/A/2014/002047 has directed such information to be shared. The CPIO stated that the letter by Prof.Sinha sent to the Director, ISI has been already sent to the appellant, but that contains no information sought. The Appellant filed first appeal on 13.10.15, and in absence of response, approached the Commission.
2. The Commission's order dated 19.06.2017:
2. The scholar-appellant alleged that his dissertation to the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata,submitted on 18.07.2005,as part of his M. Tech. Degree, was copiedverbatim by Prof. Sinha and waspublished in Asian Mobile Conference International Journal in January 2006 in the names of Prof. Sinha and another scholar as authors. He has also filed a complaint with the Director of Indian Statistical Institute and Editor of the Journal. He claimed that they gave evasive replies and supported authorship claim of Prof.Sinha, without any basis.
3. The CPIO, an administrative officer,has simply passed on the statement of Director stating that the alleged paper was originally published in 2003. This was denied by the appellant.The CPIO also stated that matter was heard by the Commission on 3.07.2015 and the respondent authority has complied with the directions issued by CIC.
CIC/MP/C/2015/000281 Page 1
4. Appellant contended that the Director has not denied the allegation, does not give name of the original author of the paper published in 2003. If what he said was true, it amounts to copyright violation by both Professor Sinha and the appellant, which should have been inquired into.The Indian Statistical Institute did not inform him whether there was any action or any inquiry upon this complaint. Appellant claimed that his thesis involved his own skill, labour, intelligence, judgment and giving of the original expression of his thoughts (in form of formulas) in a concrete form on that subject, but Prof. Sinhaappropriatedhis literary work and published in his name as author, which amounts to infringement of his copyright.
5. According to the UGC regulations, the Academic Council (or its equivalent body) of the Institution shall evolve a mechanism using well developed software and gadgets to detect plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty. While submitting for evaluation, the dissertation/thesis shall have an undertaking from the research scholar and a certificate from the Research Supervisor attesting to the originality of the work, vouching that there is no plagiarism and that the work has not been submitted for the award of any other degree/diploma of the same Institution where the work was carried out, or to any other Institution. As per these guidelines it is the responsibility of the Academic council to ensure that due diligence is conducted and that there isn't a case of academic dishonesty. In such cases of allegation of misconduct or dishonesty by a professor or a scholar demands appropriate action. Whether ISI has undertaken these measures to prevent this academic misconduct?
6. If the appellant created the work (the paper/thesis), he gets copyright. A copyright is an intangible right granted to the author or originator of certain literary or artistic productions, under which he or she is invested for a limited period with the sole, exclusive privilege of making copies and publishing and selling them.Copyright protection automatically exists from the time the work is created in fixed form. There is no requirement that the work be published or registered to obtain protection under copyright law. The copyright of any work immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work, unless it is a work-for-hire, or unless ownership has been assigned by written agreement.Section 57 of Copyright Act, 1957 provides for the special rights of an author:
"57. (1) Independently of the author's copyright and even after theassignment either wholly or partially of the said copyright, the author of a work shall have the right-
(a) to claim authorship of the work; and
(b) to restrain or claim damages in respect of any distortion, mutilation, modification or other act inrelation to the said work which is done before the expiration of the term of copyright if such distortion,mutilation, modification or other act would be prejudicial to his honour or reputation"
7. Copyright is said to be infringed when a person without any authorisation by the author does an act which only the author/owner is authorised to do, such as making unauthorised copies, distributing copies, performing in public, broadcasting, adapting, etc. The infringement of copyright is explained by the Copyright Act in Section 51:
"When copyright infringed. -Copyright in a work shall be deemed to be infringed-
(a) when any person, without a licence granted by the owner of the copyright or the Registrar ofCopyrights under this Act or in CIC/MP/C/2015/000281 Page 2 contravention of the conditions of a licence so granted or of anycondition imposed by a competent authority under this Act-
(i) does anything, the exclusive right to do which is by this Act conferred upon the owner of thecopyright, or
(ii) permits for profit any place to be used for the communication of the work to the public wheresuch communication constitutes an infringement of the copyright in the work, unless he was notaware and had no reasonable ground for believing that such communication to the public would bean infringement of copyright; or
(b) when any person-
(i) makes for sale or hire, or sells or lets for hire, or by way of trade displays or offers for sale or hire,or
(ii) distributes either for the purpose of trade or to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the ownerof the copyright, or
(iii) by way of trade exhibits in public, or
(iv) imports into India, any infringing copies of the work"
8. If it is proved professor-supervisor has used the work of scholar-appellant, without his authorisation, it amounts to infringement of his copyright besides the academic misconduct by supervisor. Or else, the appellant could be questioned if he copied from 2003 publication as alleged by Director, either way, matter has to be probed. It could be a crime also. The Copyright Act recognises acts of infringements and reserves penalty under its provisions. The section 63 of the Act:
"63. Offence of infringement of copyright or other rights conferred by this Act. Any person whoknowingly infringes or abets the infringement of-
(a) the copyright in a work, or
(b) any other right conferred by this Act, [except the right conferred by section 53A][shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than six months butwhich may extend to three years and with fine which shall not be less than fifty thousand rupees butwhich may extend to two lakhs rupees."
9. When a Professor-guide himself was accused of infringing copyright of a student-scholar, such a scholar has right to complain, right to know and Right to Informationabout the action on the complaint under RTI Act.
10. The PIO claimed that he was an administrative officer and had nothing to say on academic matters, and thus he simply forwarded whatever the Director gave. The PIO plays a crucial role in making the right to information for the citizens as a reality. He cannot just leave it to the other officers, but decide what information could be given to the appellant. He is not just a despatch clerk of post office. He has to take decision after duly applying his mind. The Act has clearly laid down the duties/obligations of a Public information officer. While Section 20 holds a PIO liable for inaction, the Act envisages the PIO to act in a just and speedy manner, providing accurate information to the applicant in time without discrepancies. Inaction of the PIO is an infringement of the Right to Information vested in the citizens of the country.
10. Prevention of misconduct is the general responsibility of the public authority. The Institute should have acted upon the complaint and informed him CIC/MP/C/2015/000281 Page 3 whether his complaint was considered to be taken up for inquiry or was rejected, if so the reasons thereof; if inquiry was ordered, what is the status of that inquiry. Based on the contentions of the parties the Commission assumes that there is no such inquiry. Hence, the Commission exercising its powers under Section 18(2) of RTI Act, direct the public authority to conduct an inquiry into the matter and send the report to this Commission.
11. The Commission also directs the respondent authority to provide the copy of the 'original' paper allegedly published in 2003, to the appellant along with the statement of the Director of Institute on this subject. The Director is also directed to explain why the ISI should not be ordered to pay compensation to the appellant who was denied the information sought. All the responses shall reach within 30 days from date of receipt of this order. Disposed of.
Decision:
3. Mr.SanghamitraBandyopadhyay, the Director vide letter dated 20.07.2017, submitted to the Commission as under:-
"1. As directed by the Hon'ble Commission a Committee was constituted with the three Members vide Office Order No. D.O./2 011 1312 dated 30th June, 2011 to investigate the allegations as recorded in the Order of the Hon'ble Commission. The Office Order constituting the Committee is enclosed for your kind reference.
2. The Committee investigated the matter and submitted its finding which inter alia states that the allegations made by Mr.Prashant Kumar Sinha in the context of Plagiarism are completely unfounded. In support of their finding they have enclosed annexure I. The Committee has also gone through the allegations made by Shri Sinha in the context of action taken by the Institute and also stated it to be unfounded. In conclusion of their finding they have attached annexure II.
Besides the above, the Committee has also enclosed annexure III (copy enclosed) explaining about the different methodology used in 2006 Paper published by Professor S.C. Ghosh and B.P. Sinha in the 4th Asian International Mobile Computing Conference, Kolkata, India, and the dissertation of Shri Prashant Kr. Sinha.
The Committee further reminded that as per the Institute's policy on M.Tech dissertation, a dissertation can also be a survey of existing research on a particular problem and therefore there may be some overlap between an M.Tech dissertation and another earlier paper/report.
3. With regards to other decisions of the Hon'ble Commission, I would like to summarize my views with the following paragraph:
The present confusion has arisen and amounted to the allegation made by Shri Prashant Kr. Sinha because of continuation of a research programme, parts of which were published in 2003 by S.C.Ghosh, B.P. Sinha and N. Das with the title 'A new approach to efficient channel assignment for hexagonal cellular networks', the M. Tech dissertation of Shri Prashant Kr. Sinha and the paper CIC/MP/C/2015/000281 Page 4 recorded in the proceeding of the 4th Asian International Mobile Computing Conference in Kolkata in the year 2006.
The findings of the earlier enquiry report was conveyed to Shri Prashant Kr. Sinha by the then Director as the First Appellate Authority. The issue is very old dating back to 2008, extending over a period of three successive Directors of the Institute; therefore it is proving to be difficult to trace all the papers. The copy of the report of the First Appellate Authority was therefore annexed by the present CPIO without the copy of the recommendations of the previous committee. The previous CPIO who had been dealing with the subject has also superannuated in 2015.
Shri P.K. Sinha was an M.Tech student of the Institute and not a research scholar. As per the guidelines given in the student brochure of the Institute an M.Tech dissertation may also be a review of recent advances with some contribution by the student andhence need not be original in nature. So far the allegation of plagiarism was neverreported in this Institute of National Importance and therefore plagiarism testing wasnever found necessary before. Since the dissertation material of the student was by andlarge a review of earlier works, copying of any text from the paper published in 2003was acceptable provided the reference was adequately cited.
4. From the foregoing paragraphs and also from the Report of the Committee and other documents attached, I hope that it could be clarified that the appellant was neither given anincomplete or misleading/false information under the Act. The Institute has always tried to furnish all the available information and never denied any information to the appellant.
In the light of the above facts/clarifications and compliance by the Institute of the directives issued by the Hon'ble Commission, it is humbly requested that the Institute may be relieved of the responsibility for payment of compensation and the matter may finally be disposed off".
4. The Senior Administrative officer & CPIO vide letter dated 05.07.2018, submitted to the Commission as under:-
"In response to the order dated 19.06.2017, the following documents were sent by e-mail on 20.07.2017 and the hardcopies by speed post on 21.07.2017 (Ref No. WW44449465IN). The cover letter was issued by the Director Indian Statistical Institute summarizing the actions taken and required clarification along with three enclosures;
Enclo. I Copy of office order constituting enquiry committee. Enclo. II Report of the Committee with Annexure I, II and III. Enclo. III Copy of paper published in the proceedings of a conference in 2003 (videitem 11 in the CIC order dated 19.06.2017) Since "(Non-compliance)" is written in the Notice received on 25 June 2018, I am once again submitting online, all of the above documents with respond to all the issues in the order of 19 June 2017. Additionally, for the sake enhanced clarity an item-wise response to the order dated 19 June 2017 is also being submitted now.
CIC/MP/C/2015/000281 Page 5 Since the time for despatching the documents is very short version of the written submission along with the enclosures are being sent for your early action hard copy is being sent by post".
5. Upon perusal of the records and submissions made by the parties, the Commission finds that information has been given and order of the Commission has been complied with to a large extent. However, the appellant wanted to know details of their counter allegations. He demanded copies of his papers, marking paragraphs, which were allegedly copied from their papers.
6. The second appeal regarding action taken information on plagiarism allegations lead to counter allegation against the appellant. Itappears no action on the plagiarism allegation either by or against the appellant, which reflects the quality of administration in Indian Statistical Institute. The Commission considers the Director Mr.SanghamitraBandyopadhyay, as deemed CPIO, and direct him to inform the appellant about details of action taken on his complaint and if action is not taken, reason for the same.
7. The Commission furtherdirects the respondent authority to provide Marked P1 Paper and Marked P2 Paper and Marked PKST Thesis (as mentioned by Respondent in Letter No. D.O.I 14785, dated 09-Jan-2009) to the appellant, in the form of certified copy, within 15 days from the date of receipt of this Order. The Commission also directs the public authority to pay compensation of Rs. 5000/-, to the appellant, within 25 days from the date of receipt of this order, for harassing without giving complete information.Disposed of.
SD/-
(M.Sridhar Acharyulu)
Central Information Commissioner
CIC/MP/C/2015/000281 Page 6