Punjab and Haryana High Court closes LLM student's plea against JGU over failed for 'AI-generated' exam answer

NEW DELHI: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has resolved the civil writ petition filed by an LLM student against OP Jindal Global University (JGU). The High Court noted that the university had resolved the petitioner's primary concern of the petitioner had been duly addressed, thereby rendering all remaining issues as academic and moot in nature.

The petition was filed by Kaustubh Anil Shakkarwar and was listed before Justice Jasgurpreet Singh Puri, Judge, Punjab and Haryana High Court. The student filed the petition after being marked as “failed” due to submitting answers that were 88% AI-generated.

In this matter, the University's counsel argued that the Petitioner had concealed an email from the Registrar. The email informed the petitioner that, since they had successfully cleared the re-sit examination for “Law and Justice in a Globalizing World,” the University had taken a lenient approach by restoring their internal assessment marks as an exceptional measure. Furthermore, the University assured the petitioner that their final grade for the course would appear on the transcript without any asterisks or annotations.

Plagiarism allegations and expulsion

Senior advocate Chetan Mittal, who represented the university and lead counsel on this matter observed, "The decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court is a thoughtful and well-reasoned conclusion. It was surprising that after having engaged in plagiarism that ought to have led to the expulsion of the concerned petitioner who is a lawyer-student, he resorted to this case, which from the very beginning had no basis in law.”

UGC Regulations on plagiarism

The University’s legal team argued that the student’s claims regarding AI-generated text and plagiarism were unfounded. They highlighted that using AI-generated texts for submitting any academic work would render it fit to constitute a violation of the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) promotion of academic integrity and prevention of plagiarism in higher educational institutions regulations, 2018.

As per these Regulations, any similarity (in the form of plagiarism) in excess of 60% of content makes the student liable to be expelled from the programme they are enrolled in.

Following this court order, the petitioner requested a signed copy of the Official Transcript, which the University provided, including the commitments from the Registrar's email. Accordingly, the High Court observed that considering the University addressing the primary concern of the Petitioner, the petition was rendered infructuous and the additional issues raised therein did not merit any further consideration at this stage.