Haroon Rashid expelled as pro-rector of COMSATS for plagiarized PhD thesis

Islamabad: The Pro-rector and Chief Executive Officer of COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT), Haroon Rashid has been found guilty of presenting a plagiarized PhD thesis.

An inquiry body was made by Islamabad High Court to investigate this issue. Upon inspection, the investigation body was ended with the decision that the thesis was indeed plagiarized and that Mr. Haroon was not a deserving candidate for PhD degree that he had obtained.

Now after the completion of overall investigation the pro-rector has been suspended as he was found guilty of plagiarism accusations leveled on him by HEC. 

PhD degree of Haroon Rashid was cancelled by Preston University after the Islamabad High Court confirmed that his PhD thesis was copied.

As stated by the anti-plagiarism policy of Higher Education commission, any person that is involved in the issue of plagiarism before 2007 will not just lose their degree but will also be stripped off any post they hold because of that the degree and this is exactly the same case with CEO of COMSATS.

The important decision of suspending Haroon Rashid was taken by the Board of CIIT in a meeting held on June 12^th, 2016. In the meeting, it was also decided that Mr. Haroon Rashid would be given a personal hearing on June 17^th, 2016 (Friday) before the final decision on his expulsion is made.

COMSATS Pro-Rector, Haroon Rashid has left the country for United States on Friday June 10^th, 2016 along with his family.

Another important topic was also discussed at the meeting and that topic was the future of National Testing Services (NTS) as it was also supervised by Haroon Rashid. Some of the sources believe that Haroon Rashid will be expelled as the CEO of NTS after being terminated as pro-rector of COMSATS Institute of Information Technology.

But, another close source to the NTS has said;

“National Testing Services is registered with Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan in the name of Haroon Rashid not “Doctor” Haroon Rashid which means that PhD is not required for its Chief Executive Officer”.