Muhammad Suleman Tahir, previously of Khwaja Fareed University of Engineering and Information Technology, is now professor and chair of the department of chemical engineering at the University of Gujrat. According to a report issued on November 20, 2025 by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in Islamabad, Tahir and his coauthors have been barred from supervising graduate students for three years and also have received a warning for their offense.

The case goes back to 2020, when Farukh Iqbal was working toward a doctorate in chemical engineering in Australia and noticed a new paper in Fuel that was clearly based on his master’s thesis. Iqbal also complained to the HEC, which found the retracted paper was based on the master’s thesis of Numair Manzoor, one of Tahir’s students. Manzoor’s thesis, in turn, was “completely plagiarized” from Iqbal’s, according to an expert committee convened by the HEC, as we reported in 2023.

Tahir argued without proof that Iqbal was the one who had plagiarized Manzoor’s work, and not the other way around. He also said he had been unaware that the paper was submitted. And he filed a 500 million rupee (~$2,800,000USD) defamation suit against Iqbal.

Source https://retractionwatch.com/2025/12/15/exclusive-muhammad-suleman-tahir-former-vice-chancellor-pakistan-plagiarism-sanctions/

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