Samia Rahman’s demotion illegal: HC

The High Court on Thursday declared illegal the demotion of Dhaka University (DU) teacher Samia Rahman from the post of associate professor to the post of assistant professor on charges of plagiarism in research papers.

The HC bench also directed the authorities concerned to restore all facilities for Samia Rahman as the post of associate professor.

An HC bench comprising Justice Zafar Ahmed and Justice Md Akhtaruzzaman came up with the order after final hearing on a rule issued by it earlier in this regard.

Earlier on September 5 in 2021, in response to a writ petition the then HC bench led by Justice M Enayetur Rahim issued a rule asking the authorities concerned to explain in four weeks why the decision to downgrade Samia Rahman to the post of assistant professor from the post of associate professor should not be declared illegal.

The HC bench also asked the DU vice-chancellor and others involved to submit a reply to the rule within four weeks and ordered to submit all the documents against Samia within 21 days.

Barrister Hassan SM Azim presented the petitioner’s side at the court while Deputy Attorney General Nawroz Md Rasel Chowdhury stood for the state.

On January 28 last year, as punishment for alleged plagiarism in a research paper, the DU syndicate committee demoted Samia from associated professor to assistant professor.

In December, 2016, an eight paged article “A New Dimension in Colonialism and Pop Culture: A Case Study of the Cultural Imperialism,” jointly authored by Samia and DU lecturer Syed Mahfuzul Haque Marzan was published in the DU Social Science Review Journal. 

Following the publication of their article in the University’s Social Science Journal, Alex Martin, who introduced himself as an administrative assistant of Chicago Journal, sent a written complaint to DU in 2017 claiming that the article copied from Michel Foucault’s “The Subject and Power.”

Complaint of copying pages from Edward Said’s “Culture and Imperialism” was also brought against the two DU teachers.

Later, the DU authorities formed an investigation committee to look into the allegation on September 27, 2017.

The committee submitted a report in 2020 finding the accused guilty.

A tribunal was formed in October, 2020 making the Dean of DU Law Faculty and syndicate committee member Prof Md Rahmat Ullah the convener to recommend academic punishment for the accused.

However, Samia in March last year claimed that she neither wrote nor submitted the article for which she was punished. She said Syed Mafuzul Haque Marzan, a lecturer of DU criminology department, wrote and submitted the article without her consent.

She said Marjan also gave a confessional statement in this connection.

“Indeed, the letter of Alex Martin of Chicago Journal based on which Dhaka University Syndicate formed an investigation committee and demoted me was totally false, fake, and fabricated. No such letter was sent [to DU] from the Chicago Journal. I’ve been the victim of a conspiracy,” Samia said.

She claimed to have communicated with Craig Walker, the editor of Chicago Journal, through social media and learned that there is no one with the Journal by the name of Alex.