Mashelkar withdraws 'copied' report

COPY AND PASTE: The Mashelkar Committe says withdrawing report would be correct.

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Mumbai: A committee headed by one of India’s top scientists has asked the Government to withdraw its report on patent laws after allegations that the document had been plagiarised.

The committee headed by R A Mashelkar, former director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, said withdrawing the report would be the "correct ethical practice".

In a letter dated February 19, the pane has told the government that it would like to withdraw the report submitted on December 29, 2006 for re-examination.

"After we learned about 10-12 lines being reproduced almost verbatim from a paper published by the Intellectual Property Institute of the University of Oxford, UK, we wrote to the government to withdraw the report immediately for re-examination,” said Mashelkar .

"I was in Washington and returned on February 16, and when I found that there were flaws, as a correct scientific and ethical practice, I wrote to the commerce ministry for re-examination of the report."

The report examined whether India's patent laws complied with the World Trade Organisation’s agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).

It had significant contributions from legal and scientific experts like Madhav Menon of the National Law school, UGC vice chairman Mulchand Sharma, International Council of Scientific Union president Govardhan Mehta and former Jawaharlal Nehru Univeristy vice chancellor Ashish Dutta.

"We have asked the government for three months' time for re-examination and resubmission of the report," Mashelkar, a former director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, said Mashelkar.

Mashelkar elaborated that the insertion of the 10 to 12 lines from the document of the Intellectual Property Institute of University of Oxford could have been made by the initial sub-group of the committee and was overlooked.

This was not done deliberately but was inadvertant and therefore, "as a good ethical practice, the committee has decided to withdraw and re-examine the report and resubmit (it after) making necessary changes", he said.