In August of 2025, Prof. Rajeev Kumar filed a petition in the Delhi High Court against his Ph.D. student from JNU for misappropriating unpublished research for paper mills with Middle-East links. The case involves three research articles that Mr. Kumar co-authored with his PhD student and submitted to a Springer journal in the United States over a span of one year and seven months, between August 2021 and March 2023. One of these papers was eventually published in August 2023, after a two-year review process. The other two, according to Mr. Kumar, who is a professor of Computer Science & Engineering and has taught at the Jawaharlal Nehru University besides being a former whistleblower faculty at IIT Kharagpur, were not published due to technical reasons.
Prof. Kumar, however, said that he found papers similar to his work on Machine Learning, Generalisation, and Multimodality published in the Research Journal, IEEE Transactions on Computing Social Systems (IEEE-TCSS). His former Ph.D. student had co-authored it along with “seven other prolific paper mill authors” (words used in the petition). It also mentions that, out of the eight authors for the paper, four were from India (including his student), one from the U.S., two from Iraq, and one from Saudi Arabia. Prof. Kumar was referring to the alleged fraudulent practice of paying to acquire a co-authorship of a paper without necessarily collaborating on the research.
“The research was entirely conceptualised, defined, and designed by me, with methodologies, algorithms, figures, and results as my intellectual contributions. My student implemented the work, generated results, and prepared initial drafts under my daily guidance and review. None of this work was in the public domain nor accessible to any third party. At no point were any other authors or collaborators,” he mentions in the petition.
The petition includes screenshots of three co-authors, including his student, admitting to misconduct in emails and WhatsApp messages. It also contains email exchanges from at least three co-authors, including his student, to the IEEE editor, requesting withdrawal of their authorship and retraction of the paper.
There is a screenshot attached in the petition showing a message from one of the IEEE editors assuring a co-author that the paper would be retracted. Mr. Kumar has mentioned in the High Court that this has not happened. He has also requested the court to constitute a Technical Expert Committee to examine the alleged misappropriation of his research article.
What are paper mills
Over time, ranking and accreditation bodies have begun rewarding institutions that measure their research output, which encourages higher educational institutions (HEIs) to prioritise it across all domains. This can be seen in the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), which assesses and accredits higher educational institutions (HEIs) “to derive an understanding of their quality status.”
NAAC assigns 12–25 percent weightage to research, innovation, and extension across universities, autonomous, and affiliated colleges. Similarly, the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) gives 15–30 percent weightage to research and professional practice, depending on the domain and subject-specific category. Even the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World Rankings factor research, with 25 percent of the score based on citations per faculty and the strength of international research networks.
According to several academics, this emphasis on research in rankings and accreditation has pushed institutions to prioritise publications, often linking them to incentives for faculty, ranging from monetary rewards to career advancement. However, research shows that it has also created demand that fuels a parallel shadow market. Critics argue that this market, driven by unethical practices, erodes the integrity of genuine scholarship and research while drawing little to no scrutiny from regulatory bodies.
Addressing these concerns, in 2023, around 40 participants from 15 countries, representing research bodies, investigators, publishers, researchers, and universities, came together to form “United2Act”. This was to coordinate collaborative, multi-stakeholder actions to address the emergence of a phenomenon called paper mills, “a real threat to the integrity of the scholarly record”. The move is led by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM).
As per a study in 2022 by COPE and STM, the paper mill is defined as a “process by which manufactured manuscripts are submitted to a journal for a fee on behalf of researchers to provide an easy publication for them, or to offer authorship for sale”. And, as per the United2Act, predatory journals are distinct entities that may be created as part of paper mill-related activity or in collaboration with paper mills. It is defined as those that prioritise profit over quality, charging authors fees while failing to provide legitimate editorial and peer review services. Further, as per the data shared by six publishers, the study by COPE and STM found that the percentage of suspect papers being submitted to journals ranges from 2-46% spanning a wide range of subject areas.
While the problem is global, a look at a shadow market, into a few paper mills, and predatory journals in India shows how they operate, what they offer, and how they reach out to academics, often those under the pressure of the familiar maxim, “publish or perish.” And, through interactions with a few paper mills, predatory journals, and their operations, it is found that some agencies advertise end-to-end services ranging from manuscript preparation to journal submission, the sale of different authorship slots, and even citation boosting, both nationally and internationally. Some go as far as offering refund guarantees if publication fails, along with equated monthly installment (EMIs) options to attract researchers, all with no real contribution from the author, who is likely to get the publication in his name.
The grey world of paper mills and predatory journals
As per an email received by a professor who requested anonymity, in a private university in Madhya Pradesh, accessed by The Hindu, from an agency from Tamil Nadu, it offers the authorship positions with Scopus Indexing for three papers: Neural Networks, Controlling devices, and Cloud-Based. The first and second authorship slots for the paper on “Cloud-Based” were already booked, while the third, fourth, and fifth slots were available—for ₹6,500, ₹6,000, and ₹5,500 each.
The agency in question even has a website, publicly accessible, stating that it is an unconventional training and consulting service in the Education Management & Research Consulting domain. Further, “the only premier and high quality English Language Journal of multidisciplinary fields published in the U.S. and India, is an international forum for scientists and engineers to publish high quality, original and refereed papers.” Its dashboard on the website shows achievements of 11,550 published works, with around 1,000 authors having had their papers published so far.
Another agency sent a WhatsApp message (accessed by The Hindu) to a Ph.D. scholar from a central university in Delhi, who requested anonymity. The message stated that the scholar’s contact was found on a public academic directory and invited them to submit papers for Volume 4, Issue 6 of a journal. The WhatsApp business account advertised “Article Writing & Publication Services for (Peer Reviewed/ WoS/ Scopus) Journals” and included a detailed pricing breakdown: Manuscript Writing – ₹20,000, Publication – ₹7,000, Printed Copies – ₹24,000, and Courier Charges – ₹2,600, totaling ₹53,600. The “discounted” package was offered at ₹31,600.
The WhatsApp message also claimed an “Impact Factor: 4.761” and listed indexing claims such as Crossref (USA), SUDOC, IvySCI (China), National Library of India, and Google Scholar, with “Web of Science” noted as “under process.” The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), which publishes Current Contents and the Science Citation Index, introduced the concept of the journal “impact factor.” ISI defines it as a measure of how often, on average, articles in a particular journal are cited in a given year. Broadly, an impact factor above 10 is regarded as exceptional, around 3 is considered good, and even less is “lowest”.
In addition, the message listed citation “boost” services: Google Scholar citations (up to 100) priced at ₹1,500 for self-citations, ₹2,000 for national author citations, and ₹3,000 for international author citations. Web of Science citations were priced higher, ranging from ₹3,000 to ₹6,000. Notably, none of these pricing details were available on the agency’s public website. But, in a sharp contrast to the website, it noted that it follows industry best practices of global and national publishing.
Two other agencies came into the picture when this reporter, posing as an aspiring scholar seeking publications under his name, searched Google for “help with research publications”. After submitting a contact request, calls followed within a half day from two agencies. In the first round, representatives from both confirmed the interest and basic requirements. In the second, they arranged a detailed call with a so-called subject expert, who explained what services would be provided.
By the third exchange, the quotations arrived. One agency asked for ₹84,250, promising a package that included topic suggestion, literature review, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) model-based research, article writing, and submission. The other agency with a similar package quoted ₹57,000. Both offered EMI payment options.
Both the agencies assured that if the paper was not published in a high-impact or indexed journal within at least four months, half the money would be refunded under a premium-only plan. They explained that once the manuscript was delivered and submitted to a journal, the process would take about a month, with peer review adding another two months, so roughly four months in total. To cover the urgency of this reporter to get published as quickly as possible, the agencies even promised acceptance letters from the journals. These, they said, could be used to strengthen profiles for job applications or Ph.D. admissions while the publication was still in progress.
Dr. Yusuf Akhter, Assistant Professor of Biotechnology at Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow, and Editor-in-Chief of Archives of Microbiology, a peer-reviewed, international journal of Springer Nature, said, such agencies often appear to operate across borders, making accountability difficult. “A paper mill in India may submit a paper to a journal based abroad, or vice versa. Regulations are weak, vary from country to country, and publishers seem to only be able to investigate after publication with the internal research ethics teams, which is why you sometimes see retractions even in credible publishing houses,” he explained.
According to him, the rise of paper mills is also likely tied to structural issues such as unemployment, incentives and the overproduction of PhDs. “These entities seem to exploit young researchers. They recycle or fabricate data, but present it in polished manuscripts that are hard to detect. As an editor, I do primary screening, but with the volume of submissions, it is very challenging to catch everything,” he said. He further suggested that scholars may be drawn to paper mills in pursuit of jobs. “It seems that many research scholars want an edge when applying for roles like research assistant, teaching assistant, or even faculty positions. Since institutions incline towards counting publications to map the research capability during selection, candidates may likely lean on paper mills, where the process looks easier and less rigorous compared to genuine research,” Prof. Akhter said.
Do consultants have no legitimate role in assisting researchers write papers? “For non-native speakers or researchers, support from consultancies can come in the form of improving data presentation, refining language, correcting grammatical mistakes, assistance with literature reviews and identifying suitable journals or conferences and polishing the overall quality of the paper is ethical and permissible. But the researcher should declare this and acknowledge such contributions in the research paper submission to the journal,” says Prof. Akhter.
“If there is manipulation, data fudging, sale of authorships, no real contribution from the author, or plagiarism, which directly challenges the integrity of research, that is what paper mills and predatory journals engage in, and it is unethical,” added Prof. Akhter.
B.R. Natarajan, Head of Chemical Engineering at Banasthali University in Rajasthan, and former Dean at BITS Pilani, says, the world and India, considering the quantitative research output by institutes for rankings has fuelled an ecosystem of predatory journals and paper mills. Prof. Natarajan says, that in the academia, the promotions and increments are tied to the number of papers published. He added that, the faculty are also caught in the middle: if they publish, the institute benefits through rankings, and accreditation, and the professor is rewarded (research grants, or career advancements); if not, they risk being branded unproductive, facing poor evaluations, stalled promotions, and even loss of goodwill.
There may be many reasons as well on why faculty turns to paper mills, one could be they are often burdened with teaching, administration, running labs, and even institution’s marketing, on the other hand paper mills which promise quick results compared to the effort required for credible, full-time research, says Dr. Natarajan.
Mr. Kumar, referring to the petition, said that, “one of the key submission to the High Court is to direct (Department of Higher Education, UGC, and AICTE) to amend the UGC (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2018 to ensure effective enforcement and accountability in matters of authorship, supervision, and academic misconduct, including gift and paid authorship/supervision. It mentions in the petition that ineffective anti-plagiarism rules, and the absence of norms for authorship and degree standards enable misconduct in the form of Gift Supervision. Gift-and-Paid Authorship & MultiAffiliations) and Gift Discipline in Higher Education Institutions.”
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