Allegations are mounting as colleagues say scientist's field findings were made up.
The sparks continue to fly around Panjab University, Chandigarh geologist Vishwa Jit Gupta, who was accused last April by an Australian scientist of having made fraudulent reports of fossil discoveries over the last two decades (Mar/April 1989 Himal). If the charges stick, much of the geological history of the Himalaya would be open to question because Gupta has reported and written on fossil discoveries for the last 20 years. The overall impact on the study of the formation of the Himalayan mountains, would be immense and the work and reputation of scores of scientists who worked with Gupta would be jeopardised.
In September, the Geological Survey of India finally set up a five-man panel of experts to investigate the charges made by Australian John A. Talent. Meanwhile, the British science journal Nature, which first carried Talent´s allegations, has printed a rebuttal by Gupta, as well as a series of letters from past co-authors of Gupta, all of whom criticise Gupta.
Talent maintains that Gupta misrepresented discoveries of prehistoric organisms called conodonts in Bhutan, India and Nepal. Further, Gupta was vague about the location of findings and that Gupta duped scientists all over the world, into co-authoring papers based on specimens he claimed to have found in the Himalaya.