Some cases of scientific misconduct have surfaced in several IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) where scientists have been accused of stealing credit for others’ research.

Experts say that the cases involve plagiarism and poor supervision of some of the younger researchers in the institutions. This shows unethical practices in researches even at the premier institutions.

IIT Kharagpur physics professor R. N. P. Choudhary has been removed after a junior faculty member accused him of not giving credit for a research paper. The charge is denied by Mr. Choudhary but upheld by an internal institutional inquiry.

Meanwhile, two journals have retracted research papers that were coauthored by senior faculty at IIT, New Delhi, and IIT, Kanpur because of plagiarism as it found one paper to include text published elsewhere.

The paper was authored by Anup Ghosh, professor of polymer science at the IIT, New Delhi, Devesh Avasthi and Pawan Kulriya from the Inter University Accelerator Centre, Sharif Ahmad from the Jamia Milia Islamia University, and Shashi Chawla from the Amity School of Engineering.

The Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research journal said that the authors had “plagiarised parts of a paper that had already appeared” in another journal. It described the case as the "severe abuse of the scientific publishing system.”

A non-government ethics watchdog for scientists, the Society for Scientific Values is investigating scientific misconduct in two other IITs.

Another journal called, Biotechnology Advances has retracted two review papers, that was coauthored by Ashok Kumar and his students from the biological sciences at IIT, Kanpur due to plagiarism.