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Former DU Vice-Chancellor Deepak Pental's arrest warrant stayed by Delhi High Court

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Former Delhi University Vice-Chancellor Deepak Pental was today ordered to be taken into custody in a complaint of plagiarism, cheating and forgery but was later directed to be released by the Delhi High Court. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vinod Kumar Gautam ordered Professor Pental's arrest on a complaint by Professor P Pardha Saradhi, who had accused him and his student of plagiarising his paper on biotechnology and publishing it as their own.

63-year-old Pental has been accused of cheating and also misappropriating some genetic material from the university's science lab.

While Pental was taken into custody around 12:45 PM, his advocate moved the high court immediately after which his arrest was stayed. The matter came up for hearing before Justice S Muralidhar of the Delhi High Court, who stayed the magisterial court's arrest warrant, saying till pendency of the petition before him, the trial court order is "suspended".

Meanwhile, the court directed the officials concerned to produce the trial court's order before December 15. The high court also said, "This order will remain in force till pending of the petition". It directed the Registrar General of the High Court to communicate the order immediately through fax and telephone to Tihar Jail authorities concerned. It also said that on next date of hearing the file related to the case be produced before it.

The high court's direction came on a plea moved by senior advocate Arvind Nigam, representing Pental, alleging that the trial court passed a wrong order and he was illegally taken into custody and sent to Tihar. 

Advocate Nigam said his client's bail plea was pending before the trial court since July and without hearing it the accused was taken into custody.
He also informed the court that the matter is listed in February for presence of the main accused, who is overseas. The high court also issued notice to complainant Saradhi seeking his response on Pental's petition.

Advocate Praveen Kumar Singh, who appeared for the complainant, said the private complaint was filed in the court of ACMM in 2009 alleging that Pental had allured post-doctoral research student KVSK Prasad and they plagiarised Saradhi's paper and published it as their own between 2000-2002.

Pental, the vice chancellor of Delhi University in 2005- 2010, along with Prasad were made accused in the complaint. Saradhi was a professor of environmental science in the Delhi University. 

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