- The Journal follows the authorship guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (http://www.icmje.org/).
- The Journal assigns equal responsibility of intellectual integrity of the manuscript to all authors whose names appear on the manuscript/article.
- When submitting a manuscript, the Journal requires that all authors sign a statement accepting this responsibility.
- This statement must indicate that no part of the manuscript has been plagiarized.
- Any such material should be made accessible to the Editor and should only be used with referencing according to the guidelines of authorship. This may otherwise form the basis of a redundant publication/ duplicate publication/”salami slicing” and appropriate action may be taken by the Editor which may range from rejection of the manuscript to debarment of the authors(s) from further publication in the Journal.
- It is emphasized that the Journal considers self plagiarism as equally unethical as plagiarism in any other form. If material is to be used from the authors previous work, standard referencing guidelines must be followed.
- All manuscripts submitted to the Journal will be checked for plagiarism. If a manuscript submitted for publication (or a manuscript accepted for publication or an article that has already been published in the Journal) is found to be based on plagiarized material, the Editor will be obliged to write to the author(s) seeking an explanation. The corresponding author will be required to respond with an explanation within 30 days of receiving the letter from the editor.
- Any such manuscript for review will be held up till the matter is resolved.
- After receiving the author’s explanation, if considered necessary, the Editor may also send a letter of information to the Head of the Institution or any other relevant authority at the author(s) institution.
- In case an acceptable explanation is provided by the author(s), the Editor may recommend appropriate changes after which the review process for the submitted manuscript may commence.
- In case of failure of author(s) to either respond within the stipulated time, or in case they are unable to provide a suitable explanation, the Editor will convene a meeting of the Plagiarism Committee of the Board of Editors of the Journal to consider further action.
- Further action will depend upon the nature of the offence and may include rejection of the manuscript from publication along with possible debarment of the author(s) from further publishing in the Journal. The period of debarment will depend upon the nature of the offence and may range from a period of a few months to permanent.
- Information regarding this action may be published in the forth coming issue of the Journal on a numbered page.
Plagiarism, if detected and proved, would be considered a punishable offence.
Immediate and unbiased action will be taken by the Plagiarism Committee.