Dr Zafar Iqbal Cheema, President Strategic Vision Institute (SVI) on Friday said he is going to file a damage suit against a former university professor along with a student for tarnishing his reputation by accusing him of plagiarism.
Talking to mediapersons along with his lawyer Mian Ahmad, Cheema, Dr Zafar said an Islamabad court (the Civil Judge Islamabad) on June 23, 2016 dismissed the allegations of plagiarism against him as "fake and fictitious."
He said he had filed a civil suit against a former student of Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad Mirza Mohammad Masood Akbar, and former head of the Defence and Strategic Studies Department of the university Riffat Hussain and others (defendants) relating to media allegations of plagiarism by Masood Akbar of Defence and Strategic Studies Department against him in 2009.
Akbar alleged in a media interview that Dr Cheema published his seminar paper titled "An Interpretive Analysis of India-Pakistan Strategic Culture and on South Asian Peace and Security" in the Journal of Regional Studies under his (Dr Cheema) name. Following the allegations, Cheema said he approached the civil court contending that the "acts of the defendants were illegal, unlawful, arbitrary, mala fide and defamatory."
He further called for restraining the defendants from making such allegations. According to him, the judge granted stay order in favour of him and restrained the defendants from publishing further (defamatory) material.
He further said that the defendants contested the civil suit by filing statements but subsequently failed to attend the court proceedings on which the court issued notices against them through publications.
He maintained that the judge after proper hearing of the case dismissed the "fake and frivolous" allegations as "unlawful, illegal, unjustified and in violation of the fundamental rights of Dr Zafar Cheema." Furthermore, he maintained that the court restrained the defendants in future regarding publication of plagiarism in the media or otherwise.
"Dr Riffat Hussain, who had initiated a departmental inquiry being the then chairperson of the DSS Department, by constituting Anti-Plagiarism and Fairness Committee, whose legality I'd questioned contending that Dr Riffat Hussain was himself a defendant in the said case and therefore the constitution of the committee was based on mala fide intentions," he added.
He further stated: "The media report had noted that the allegations were rooted in the rivalry and academic politics of the DSS Department and the University." He said that the allegations surfaced after his retirement from the university.
Dr Cheema was the founding member of QAU's Department of Strategic Studies and retired as its chairperson and meritorious professor; and Dean QAU's faculty of Social Sciences. He has also served at Oxford University as Quaid-e-Azam Fellow and held fellowships at Kings College University of London and George Town University (Washington) on post-doctoral fellowships.
Welcoming the judgement, Dr Cheema said, "it has vindicated him by accepting his position that the allegations were unsubstantiated: mala fide and intended to be defamatory."
He said the long-awaited verdict has ended his suffering, because it had put at stake his over 40 years of professional work both in the country and abroad.
To a question, Cheema said that he had instructed his lawyer to prepare a damage suit to be filed in the court, adding the 'baseless' allegations have caused damages to his reputation.