Vadodara: After teachers recruitment scam, now a PhD scam has come to haunt professor P S Choondawat, the former dean of M S University's Faculty of Arts and MSU officials.On Wednesday, advocate Shailesh Amin made a representation before MSU officials alleging that Choondawat as head of Department of Sociology had cleared a PhD thesis which was plagiarised.Amin, who submitted evidence of plagiarism to university officials stated that Choondawat as PhD guide had cleared the thesis of professor Chandramani More from K M Shah Dental College and Hospital, Sumandeep Vidyapeeth. who had allegedly plagiarised entire thesis of his student Dr Krushna Thakkar. It was in December 2009 that Thakkar, who was then a student of master of dental surgery in oral medicine and radiology, had submitted dissertation titled 'An epidemiological study of tobacco and arecanut use, its effect on oral health and determining specific age and gender in rural area of Waghodia taluka, Vadodara district'.Professor More, head of the department, was her guide. Later, More himself submitted his PhD on the same subject titled 'Social and cultural aspect of tobacco and arecanut use in Gujarat: a sociological study' under Choondawat's guidance in October 2011."It is not just about the thesis title being identical. More had plagiarised around 100 pages from Thakkar's dissertation which were simply presented as his own work. Choondawat has cheated the university by certifying that it is an original work of the candidate," said Amin, who demanded that the university should immediately sack Choondawat, register a police complaint in the scam and also order an inquiry on all the PhDs cleared by Choondawat.Choondawat was recently arrested by Jodhpur's anti-corruption bureau in connection to a teachers recruitment scam at Jai Narayan Vyas University.While MSU had suspended him after his arrest, the university's syndicate members had done a flip-flop by revoking the suspension order based on a request made by Choondawat who had stated that the cops had not found anything concrete against him. Sources suggest that a couple of years back, Thakkar herself had approached MSU officials to complaint against the plagiarism case, but the then university officials had failed to act in the matter. "I am yet to go through the entire complaint. But whatever is the matter, we would take necessary action on it," said MSU vice-chancellor professor Parimal Vyas.

Stay updated with all the Latest Vadodara headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.