Mumbai University's department of law has no committee formed to check plagiarism. This was revealed in a reply to RTI that a lawyer filed with the Information officer of Mumbai University's law department. Advocate Sandeep Kedare inquired about the percentage of plagiarism in LLM thesis submitted between 2015-2019. Kedare alleged that the varsity's reply is a violation of the University Grant Commission's guidelines on plagiarism and the University has failed to implement the required guidelines. Kedare was given a reply by Mumbai University that there is no committee constituted with regards to plagiarism and hence no UGC law is applicable. Kedare informed, "The UGC mandates that universities across the country have to check all submitted thesis for plagiarism. The Mumbai University's reply shows that PhDs are awarded to candidates without checking for plagiarism. There is no way to know how many plagiarised thesis has been awarded degrees so far." Echoing sentiments of Kedare, another M.Phil student Shomit Salunkhe of Mumbai University said, "The UGC guidelines on plagiarism came long back. However, it was made strict in 2018 when the UGC (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in higher educational institutions) regulation, 2018 came in. It is shocking to know that Mumbai University has still not implemented it." In a circular dated August 2018 the UGC came out with a clear notification for vice chancellors of all the Universities to put in force plagiarism related guidelines and ensure the compliance of same in their University and it's affiliated colleges. The current UGC's new anti-plagiarism policy allows up to 10 per cent content similarity. In case it exceeds till 40 per cent then the student will need to revise his/her research paper within six months and submit it. When informed about the rank ignorance of plagiarism related laws in its department the varsity offered an explanation. UGC CRITERION

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