UGC Plagiarism Rules 2018: Levels and Penalties

As per the UGC 2018 regulations, a thesis with similarity up to 10% gets no penalty. Above 10% there are three penalty levels, and above 60% the registration itself is cancelled.

This UGC figure is only the minimum rule for the whole country. Your own university can fix a stricter limit, and many universities in South India have done that. Read the UGC text first and after that your university ordinance. If the university figure is lower than the UGC one, you have to go by the university figure only. Also look at the exclusions in clause 7. Many scholars don’t know they can ask the library to apply them.

Which regulation this is, and who it covers

The full name is the UGC (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2018. UGC notified it on 23 July 2018, and it was published in the Gazette on 31 July 2018. Many times you will hear it called “the UGC plagiarism rules” or simply “the 2018 regulations”. It is the same document only.

The regulations apply to students, research scholars and faculty. As a scholar you mainly need three clauses. Clause 6 says what the university has to do. Clause 7 says what is left out of the count. Clause 12.1 gives the penalty levels for theses and dissertations. Master’s dissertations also come under the same levels, because everywhere the text says “thesis and dissertations”.

Clause 6 makes the university check the work with software. You sign an undertaking saying the work is your own and it was checked on a tool the university has approved. Your guide also gives a certificate that the work is free of plagiarism. In most universities these two papers are bound in the preliminary pages of the thesis.

Some scholars mix this up with the UGC 2022 PhD regulations. The 2022 regulations also ask for “well-developed software” and the same two certificates. But they don’t give any percentage. The percentages you hear about all come from the 2018 document only.

The four levels, read slowly

Clause 12.1 puts every thesis into one of four levels, based on the similarity found. The exact bands are in the table below. Please read the words “above” and “up to” slowly, because they decide on which side of the line your thesis falls. If the report says exactly 10%, it is Level 0. If it says 10.4%, it is already Level 1.

Most scholars who cross the limit land in Level 1, and it is not the end of your PhD. You get time to correct it, six months at most. Level 2 is more serious. For one year you cannot submit a revised script, and this can take you past your maximum period. At Level 3 the registration is cancelled.

There are two notes under the clause that scholars easily miss. If the offence is repeated, the penalty is from the next higher level. And if plagiarism comes to light only after the award, the degree can be kept in abeyance. So passing the check once does not close the matter.

Penalty levels for students under clause 12.1 of the UGC 2018 regulations
Similarity in the report	Level	What happens to the scholar
10% or less	Level 0	Taken as minor. No penalty.
More than 10%, not over 40%	Level 1	Correct the thesis and submit again, within the time the university gives (six months at most).
More than 40%, not over 60%	Level 2	No revised script is accepted for one year.
More than 60%	Level 3	Registration is cancelled.

Some university limits in our five cities, as of October 2026
University	Limit it sets for a PhD thesis	Point to note
Bharathiar University	10% on DrillBit	Certificate is valid for 15 days only. The e-thesis has the chapters only.
Anna University (CFR)	Level 0, so 10%	Papers you claim in the thesis are not counted.
University of Hyderabad	10%	Matching with a paper where you are first author is not counted.
Osmania University	10%, plus 20% for AI content	You give both figures in the undertaking (2026-27 rules).
JNTUH	24% overall	No single source can cross 3%, except your own papers.
KTU	20% “as a general guideline”	Bibliography and self-plagiarism are not counted.
VTU	10% in the PhD Manual	Formats page is still showing 25%. Aim for 10%.
RGUHS	15% of total contents	No exclusions are listed in the ordinance.

What the count is allowed to leave out

Clause 7 gives the list of what is excluded from similarity. Many scholars get a higher number only because the library ran the report with all filters off.

Quoted work, used with permission and/or with attribution.
The reference list or bibliography, contents pages, acknowledgements and the preface, if you have one.
Standard symbols and equations, text of laws, and generic terms used in your subject.

Below clause 7 there is a note, and scholars should read that also. As per that note, common knowledge, or a phrase that matches by chance up to 14 consecutive words, is not counted. For this reason INFLIBNET itself advises three settings for a thesis check. Exclude quotes, exclude the bibliography, and exclude small sources of 14 words or fewer.

Suppose your report show 18%, and a third of the matches are from your reference list. In that case go to the library, ask them to share full report, and see if the filters were on or off. When the report is run the way the regulation intends, the number is many times lower. Our page on why Turnitin, DrillBit and Ouriginal give different numbers also tells where these filters are in each tool.

The parts that must be your own words

The same note wants the main part of the work to be original. It names the hypothesis, the observations and results, the summary, the abstract, and the conclusions and recommendations. Putting quotation marks will not help you fill these parts.

Examiners also check these parts most carefully. Quoting some definitions in the literature review is normal. If the results chapter is matching with another thesis, that is a real problem. Suppose your total is under the limit but some matches are coming in Chapter 4 or Chapter 5. Still you should correct those matches first.

Many scholars are asking us what “original” means for an abstract. We tell them the abstract has to come from your own findings, written by you. Using a standard term like “structural equation modelling” or “Cronbach’s alpha” is no problem. Clause 7 leaves such generic terms out.

Your university’s limit comes first

The UGC 10% is the line for penalties. It does not mean 10% will be accepted in every university. A university can fix a lower limit, or it can use a different method of counting. In our five cities the rules vary more than most scholars think. In the second table we have listed some of them, checked against each university’s own documents in October 2026.

Take JNTUH as one example. The overall limit there is 24%, which looks liberal. But no single source can go above 3%, so a thesis that depends heavily on one earlier thesis can fail even at 15%. Osmania now asks for a separate AI-content figure of 20% or less, along with the 10% similarity limit. At Bharathiar University, the DrillBit certificate is valid for 15 days only. Get all your other documents ready first and then apply for the certificate.

Sometimes a university’s own documents don’t match with each other. VTU’s PhD Manual 2024 says 10%, but its formats web page is still showing 25%. In such cases go with the lower number, because 10% satisfies both.

A few universities don’t print any figure. The University of Madras regulations don’t give any percentage. They only say the acceptable level will follow rules framed by its Syndicate “from time to time”. If your university is like this, write to the library and ask which figure they are applying now.

What about AI-written text?

When the 2018 regulations were written, ChatGPT and such tools were not there. So the text has nothing on AI-generated writing. We checked the text again in October 2026. There is no AI limit at the national level.

Some scholars are reading this as a free pass for AI, which is wrong, because universities are now making their own rules on it. Osmania’s 2026-27 regulations allow at most 20% AI-generated content. At IISc the student handbook counts AI-produced text as plagiarism, though for grammar and clarity a scholar can use AI there. INFLIBNET’s FAQ for its DrillBit service says every submission gets a separate AI-detection report. So your library check may come with an AI figure also, even if no rule in your university has fixed an AI limit.

To every scholar who comes to us we are saying one thing, write the thesis yourself. Old drafts and reading notes, keep all of it in one folder. Any doubt comes on your work later means that folder is your proof of how each chapter was written. And before using any AI tool for more than spelling and grammar, discuss about it with your guide.

Who decides when there’s a problem

A similarity report alone does not prove plagiarism. Clauses 10 and 11 ask every university to form a Departmental Academic Integrity Panel (DAIP) and an Institutional Academic Integrity Panel (IAIP). For both the panels, the time to finish and send the report is 45 days.

The DAIP studies the report, hears your side and then decides the level. If you disagree, you can go to the IAIP. At Bharathiar University, for example, the DAIP has a software expert, the HoD and an outside senior academic. A case there may begin with a complaint, with an examiner’s remark or on the university’s own motion.

If a panel calls you, take the report, your drafts and your sources with you. Show them which matches are quotations, which are standard terms and which come from your own published papers. Explain calmly. Mostly the panel goes by the documents you show them, and only saying sorry will not help much.

What to do before your own check

Begin with your university ordinance, and keep the UGC text for later. Find the clause that gives the limit. Then note the software, who runs the check and how many attempts you are allowed. Write these four points on one sheet and keep it in your thesis file.

Next run a check on the final draft. Look at the source list carefully and do the corrections in the chapters that must be original. The steps are in our guide to reducing similarity honestly, and there are no tricks in it. If you want help reading the report, our similarity check and reduction service goes through it chapter by chapter with you. The rewriting you will do yourself, in your own words.

Also keep the certificate and the report PDF together, with the date. Clause 12.1 allows a case to be opened after the award also. Then a dated report is the easiest proof of what was checked and on which date.

Questions scholars ask

Is 10% the limit at every Indian university?

No. Ten per cent is the UGC Level 0 ceiling, which means up to that point there is no penalty. Each university can set its own figure, and some count similarity in a different way. JNTUH, for example, caps any one source at 3%. What your ordinance says is final.

Does the 10% include my reference list?

It should not. Clause 7 excludes the references, bibliography, table of contents, preface and acknowledgements. If these are getting counted in your report, ask the person who runs the check to apply the exclusions.

Do my own published papers count as plagiarism?

This differs from university to university. Anna University excludes the papers you claim in the thesis. The University of Hyderabad ignores papers where you are the first author. At Bangalore University, your supervisor lists the papers that may be excluded in a separate certificate. Whatever your university’s rule, give a proper citation to your own papers also.

Do the UGC levels apply to a Master’s dissertation?

Yes, they apply. The words in clause 12.1 are “thesis and dissertations”, so Master’s work also falls under the same bands. The exception is when the university has fixed its own figure. TNAU is one such case, and it accepts Master’s and doctoral theses with similarity below 30%.

What happens if plagiarism is found after I get the degree?

As per a note under clause 12.1, the degree can be held in abeyance. Some universities are stricter. Bangalore University is one example, where under the 2024 regulations a proved case of plagiarism means the degree gets rescinded.

Sources

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