Court

Dr Lal denies misleading court

August 4, 2022 12:50 pm

[File Photo]

Former Chief Executive of Pacific TAFE, Dr Hasmukh Lal today denied that he was misleading the Employment Relations Court.

Dr. Lal took USP to court after he was terminated for alleged plagiarism in May 2020.

The former Chief Executive of Pacific TAFE today maintained that his doctorate papers were not written by someone else.

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However, he says that he did seek the assistance of research and analytical officer Priya Devi.

A series of emails which were exchanged between Dr Lal and Devi in 2019 were produced as evidence in the trial today.

While being cross-examined by USP Counsel Feizal Haniff, Dr. Lal said email was not the only medium of correspondence between him and Devi and that they had also exchanged information saved on their USB’s.

The defense counsel put it to him that in the series of emails exchanged between him and Devi, there were no attachments by Dr. Lal indicating how much work he had done on the paper meant for his final project.

He replied that he couldn’t remember whether he had sent any attachments with his work to Devi.

Dr. Lal also denied that he told Devi that the paper was for the university and that she would be acknowledged as the co-author.

He says Devi knew that the paper on which she was assisting him was his final project.

Dr. Lal says he was also working on another paper which was meant for the university and he had sent it for editing.

The trial continues.