KATHMANDU, Nov 15: Plagiarism is a serious crime of intellectual property theft. At a time when only politicians and bureaucrats are courting criticism from various quarters for corruption cases, intellectuals and academicians have also started following suit, hitting headlines for intellectual property theft or ‘plagiarism.’

The incumbent Vice Chancellor of Tribhuvan University, Professor Dr. Tirtha Khaniya is one of them. Dr. Khaniya had committed plagiarism in his article titled ‘Authentic Materials and Cultural Content in EFL Classrooms’ written for the academic journal published by the Nepal English Language Teachers’ Association (NELTA) in 2006.

In this article Khaniya had plagiarized from Ferit Kilickaya’s article titled ‘Authentic Materials and Cultural Content in EFL Classrooms.’ Khaniya had copied and pasted lines from Ferit’s article without giving credit to Ferit. Khaniya’s intellectual property theft made headlines at a time when Khaniya’s name was recommended for the post of Vice Chancelor of Tribhuvan University. National dailies had published news on this issue on February 16, 2013.

Khaniya is not the only academician accused of intellectual property theft.Professor Dr. Kedarnath Ghimire is another academician blacklisted for plagiarism.

He was accused of copying and pasting text from Indian writers’ articles. A case was filed at the CIAA against Ghimire which is still sub judice.

Some of the lines plagiarized by Khaniya are as follows: