Himalayan fossil hoax

Vishwa Jit Gupta worked for his Ph.D. degree under the supervision of Mulk Raj Sahni at Panjab University in Chandigarh. Focussing on the palaeontology and geological features of the Himalayas, he started his main research and field work in 1963. He and Sahni reported the initial findings in five research papers in 1964, − a discovery of graptolites in two papers in Nature,{{cite journal |last1=Sahni |first1=M. R. |last2=Gupta |first2=V. J. |date=1964-01-25 |title=Graptolites in the Indian Sub-continent |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/201385b0 |journal=Nature |volume=201 |issue=4917 |pages=385–386 |doi=10.1038/201385b0 |bibcode=1964Natur.201..385S |s2cid=4192515 |issn=1476-4687|url-access=subscription }}{{cite journal |last1=Sahni |first1=M. R. |last2=Gupta |first2=V. J. |date=1964-12-01 |title=Graptolites from the Kashmir Himalayas, also a Note on the Discovery of Fossils in the Muth Quartzite |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/2041081a0 |journal=Nature |volume=204 |issue=4963 |pages=1081–1082 |doi=10.1038/2041081a0 |bibcode=1964Natur.204.1081S |s2cid=4218125 |issn=1476-4687|url-access=subscription }} a fossil assemblage in two papers in Current Science,{{cite journal |last1=Sahni |first1=M. R. |last2=Gupta |first2=V. J. |date=1964 |title=Lower Palaeozoic Fossils from the Kashmir Himalaya |url=https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/33/13/0402.pdf |journal=Current Science |volume=33 |issue=13 |pages=402–403 |issn=0011-3891 |jstor=24061792}}{{cite journal |last1=Sahni |first1=M. R. |last2=Gupta |first2=V. J. |date=1964 |title=Additional fossils from the lower palaeozoic of the Kashmir Himalaya |url=https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/33/17/0527.pdf |journal=Current Science |volume=33 |issue=17 |pages=527 |issn=0011-3891}} and one in the Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India.{{cite journal |last1=Sahni |first1=M.R. |last2=Gupta |first2=V.J. |date=1964 |title=First record of fossils in the Muth Quartzite |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MC0JAAAAIAAJ |journal=Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India |volume=4 |pages=33–34 |doi=10.1177/0971102319590106 |issn=0552-9360|url-access=subscription }} His doctoral thesis was entitled Palaeontology, Stratigraphy and Structure of the Palaeozoic Rocks of the Area South-East of Srinagar upon which he received his degree in 1966.{{cite journal |last1=Fuchs |first1=G. |last2=Gupta |first2=V.J. |date=1971 |title=Palaeozoic stratigraphy of Kashmir, Kishtwar and Chamba (Panjab Himalayas) |url=https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/VerhGeolBundesanstalt_1971_0068-0097.pdf |journal=Verhandlungen der Geologischen Bundesanstalt |volume=1 |issue=6 |pages=68–97}}

Over 25 years, Gupta published at least 458 research articles and five books. His publications were recognised as standard references on the geology and fossil record of the Himalayan region.{{cite web |last=Anderson |first=Ian |date=1989-04-29 |title=Fossils scandal throws Himalayas into turmoil |url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12216622-800-fossils-scandal-throws-himalayas-into-turmoil/ |access-date=2023-12-30 |website=New Scientist}}{{cite web |date=1989-09-01 |title=Is Himalayan Geology Tainted? |url=https://www.himalmag.com/is-himalayan-geology-tainted/ |access-date=2023-12-30 |website=Himal Southasian-GB}} As an honour, the Panjab University awarded him a D.Sc. and in 1972 created him a separate chair, Director of the Institute of Paleontology.{{cite journal |last=Talent |first=John |date=1994 |title=Vishwa Jit Gupta's Fraudulent Enterprise: Unanticipated Finale talent 1994 |url=http://unica2.unica.it/sds/images/SDS%20Newsletter%2011%20red.pdf |journal=I.U.G.S. Subcommission on Devonian Stratigraphy Newsletter |volume=11 |page=68}}

Technical incongruities in Gupta's research were first pointed out by Sampige Venkateshaiya Srikantia, Om Narain Bhargava and Hari Mohan Kapoor of the Geological Survey of India.{{cite journal |last=Bhargava |first=Om |date=2024-06-01 |title=John Alfred Talent (1932 - 2024) |url=https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/geosocindia/jour-geosocindia/article/100/6/911/644273/John-Alfred-Talent-1932-2024 |journal=Journal of the Geological Society of India |volume=100 |issue=6 |pages=911 |doi=10.17491/jgsi/2024/173925 |bibcode=2024JGSI..100..911B |issn=0016-7622}}{{cite journal |last=Bhargava |first=O. N. |date=2024-06-01 |title=John Alfred Talent (18 October 1932 – 27 March 2024) |journal=Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India |volume=69 |issue=1 |pages=95–96 |doi=10.1177/05529360241257711 |issn=0552-9360|doi-access=free |bibcode=2024JPalS..69...95B }} In 1978, Srikantia's team described the presence of bivalve mollusc fossils (Eurydesma cordatum and Deltopecten mitchelli) from Lahaul Valley, Himachal Pradesh, following a scientific exploration of the Himalayas. They came across the accounts of Gupta on the identification of Eurydesma at two locations in the Himalayas. In 1970 Gupta had reported finding the fossils in Lachulung La, identifying the deposits as Permian (Cisuralian, around 298 to 272 million years old) limestone.{{cite journal |last1=Gupta |first1=V.J. |last2=Mahajan |first2=G. |last3=Kumar |first3=S. |last4=Chadha |first4=D.K. |last5=Bisaria |first5=P.C. |last6=Virdi |first6=N.S. |last7=Kochhar |first7=N. |last8=Kashyap |first8=S.R. |date=1978 |title=Stratigraphy along the Manali-Leh road |journal=Publication of the Centre of Advanced Study in Geology |volume=7 |pages=77−84}} In 1973, he again described the same specimens from the Malung shale of Lahaul Valley in his book Indian Palaeozoic Stratigraphy.{{cite book |last=Gupta |first=Vishwa Jit |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1iIzAAAAIAAJ |title=Indian Palaeozoic Stratigraphy |date=1973 |publisher=Hindustan Publishing Corporation |pages=87–89}} Here, Gupta assigned the fossils to a much younger Upper Permian (Lopingian, around 259 to 251 million years old). Srikantia's team noticed not only that Gupta's bivalves could not have existed in such different ages, but also found critical errors. They determined that Lachulung La was of a much younger series, the Triassic-Jurassic (250 to 145 million years old); Malung shale was already known to be of Upper Triassic (208 to 201 million years old). Their report ends with a cautionary statement: "the sequence built up by Gupta in the Sarchu area cannot be used for any stratigraphic work."{{cite journal |last1=S. V. |first1=Srikantia |last2=Bhargava |first2=O. N. |last3=Kapoor |first3=H. M. |date=1978-02-01 |title=A Note on the Occurrence of Eurydesma and Deltopecten Assemblage from the Kuling Formation (Permian) Baralacha Ban Area, Lahaul Valley, Himachal Himalaya |journal=Journal of the Geological Society of India |volume=19 |issue=2 |pages=73–78 |issn=0974-6889}}

File:John Alfred Talent.jpg

In 1978, the American geologist Gilbert Klapper from the University of Iowa met Willi Ziegler at the University of Marburg in Germany to discuss the progress of research on extinct jawless vertebrates, the conodonts.{{cite journal |last=Lewin |first=Roger |date=1989-04-21 |title=The Case of the "Misplaced" Fossils |url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.244.4902.277 |journal=Science |volume=244 |issue=4902 |pages=277–279 |doi=10.1126/science.244.4902.277|pmid=17738290 |bibcode=1989Sci...244..277L |url-access=subscription }} At that time, Ziegler had Australian guests, John W. Pickett from the Geological Survey of New South Wales and his associate John Alfred Talent from Macquarie University in Sydney. Talent was by then an established expert in Devonian geology of Australian and Indian regions.{{cite journal |last1=Veevers |first1=J. J. |last2=Jones |first2=J. G. |last3=Talent |first3=J. A. |date=1971-02-05 |title=Indo-Australian stratigraphy and the configuration and dispersal of Gondwanaland |url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16059257 |journal=Nature |volume=229 |issue=5284 |pages=383–388 |doi=10.1038/229383a0 |issn=0028-0836 |pmid=16059257|bibcode=1971Natur.229..383V }}{{cite journal |last=Talent |first=John A. |date=1972 |title=Provincialism and Australian early Devonian faunas |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00167617208728794 |journal=Journal of the Geological Society of Australia |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=80–97 |doi=10.1080/00167617208728794 |bibcode=1972AuJES..19...80T |issn=0016-7614|url-access=subscription }}{{cite journal |last=Talent |first=John |date=1981 |title=Palaeontology and stratigraphy in India retrospect and prospects |url=https://www.geosocindia.org/index.php/jgsi/article/view/64914 |journal=Journal of the Geological Society of India |volume=22 |issue=10 |pages=453–457 |doi=10.17491/jgsi/1981/221001 |bibcode=1981JGSI...22..453T |issn=0016-7622|url-access=subscription }} As the leader of the research team of the first International Geological Correlation Programme (IGCP-1), a project of UNESCO, Talent had explored the Himalayas in 1973−1977.{{cite web |date=1973 |title=International Geological Correlation Programme: first session of the Board |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000064480 |access-date=2024-09-07 |website=UNESCO}}{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IC9SAQAAIAAJ |title=International Geological Correlation Programme IGCP: Scientific Achievements 1973-1977 |date=1978 |publisher=UNESCO |editor-last=Bassett |editor-first=M.G. |location=Paris |pages=1−120 |lccn=81452549}}{{cite journal |last=Simpson |first=Andrew |date=2024 |title=John Talent: A full life (1932-2024) |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380753862 |journal=Pander Society Newsletter |volume=56 |pages=10−14}} Pickett and Talent shared their Himalayan studies and discussed Gupta's research on Devonian conodonts. They had also investigated 20 locations around Nepal, where Gupta had claimed many discoveries from Triassic, Permian, Carboniferous, and Devonian deposits (rocks ranging from around 420 to 299 million years old),{{cite journal |last1=Gupta |first1=V. J. |last2=Rhodes |first2=F. H. T. |last3=Austin |first3=R. L. |date=1967-10-30 |title=Devonian Conodonts from Kashmir |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/216468a0 |journal=Nature |volume=216 |issue=5114 |pages=468–469 |doi=10.1038/216468a0 |bibcode=1967Natur.216..468G |issn=1476-4687|url-access=subscription }}{{cite journal |last=Gupta |first=V.J. |date=1976 |title=Conodont biostratigraphy of the Middle and Upper Triassic rocks of Kashmir and Ladakh |journal=Himalayan Geology |volume=6 |pages=314−322}}{{cite journal |last1=Gupta |first1=V.J. |last2=Rafek |first2=M. |date=1976 |title=Middle and Upper Triassic conodonts from the Himalayas |journal=Chayanica Geologica |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=196–214}}{{cite journal |last=Gupta |first=V.J. |date=1976 |title=Carboniferous conodonts from Ladakh |journal=Chayanica Geologica |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=12−36}} and to their astonishment, found no fossils except one which was Silurian (around 443 to 420 million years ago, before the Devonian). In one specific case, they explored the area where Gupta and William B. N. Berry (Director of the University of California Museum of Paleontology) had reported in 1966 several fossils from Kashmir.{{cite journal |last1=Berry |first1=William B. N. |last2=Gupta |first2=V. J. |date=1966 |title=Monograptids from the Kashmir Himalayas |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1301950 |journal=Journal of Paleontology |volume=40 |issue=6 |pages=1338–1344 |jstor=1301950 |issn=0022-3360}} They found that not only the rocks were wrongly identified,{{Clarify|reason=Wrongly identified in what way?|date=March 2025}} but were so deformed that no fossil could have been present.

File:Bulletin of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences (1919) (20254717390).jpg

When Klapper and Ziegler learned of this, they looked into some of Gupta's papers and quickly noticed two photographs of the same conodont fossil. Gupta's report indicated they were collected from sites several miles apart. They thought that it could be a case of accidental duplication of the same photograph. Real suspicion arose when they found the resemblance of Gupta's fossils with those collected by George Jennings Hinde from the Eighteen Mile Creek near Buffalo, New York,{{cite journal |last=O'Connell |first=Marjorie |date=1918-12-13 |title=George Jennings Hinde |url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.48.1250.588 |journal=Science |volume=48 |issue=1250 |pages=588–590 |bibcode=1918Sci....48..588O |doi=10.1126/science.48.1250.588 |issn=0036-8075 |jstor=1642345 |pmid=17738453 |jstor-access=free}} that had been presented before the Geological Society of London a century before, in 1876.{{cite book |last=Knell |first=Simon J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z7c43GPOUg0C&dq=George+Hinde+in+1879+fossil+buffalo&pg=PP2 |title=The Great Fossil Enigma: The Search for the Conodont Animal |date=2012-11-06 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-00604-2 |pages=374}} Gupta had sought for collaboration with both Klapper and Ziegler at different times, but they had declined due to their concern about the suspicious incidents.

The first methodical and critical analysis of Gupta's research records was done by Prem N. Agarwal and S. N. Singh of the University of Lucknow. In 1980, Agarwal and Singh reviewed research development in the general palaeontology of the Himalayas in which they also examined Gupta's papers.{{cite journal |last1=Agarwal |first1=Prem N. |last2=Singh |first2=S. N. |date=May 1980 |title=Recent advances in micropalaeontological investigations of the marme Triassic rocks of India |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0971102319800112 |journal=Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=110–129 |doi=10.1177/0971102319800112 |bibcode=1980JPalS..25..110A |issn=0552-9360|url-access=subscription }} First, they found the long list of conodonts described by Gupta in 1978{{cite journal |last=Gupta |first=V.J. |date=1981 |title=Triassic conodonts from the Himalaya and their stratigraphic and palaeobiogeographic implications |url=https://pascal-francis.inist.fr/vibad/index.php?action=getRecordDetail&idt=PASCALGEODEBRGM8120478735 |journal=Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia e Stratigrafia |volume=87 |issue=1 |pages=23−39 |orig-year=}} that bears an uncanny resemblance to those in the doctoral thesis of Nand Lal Chhabra submitted to the University of Lucknow in 1977. They noted: "It is really a surprising coincidence, unless either of the authors has drawn upon the data of the other without proper reference or acknowledgement." Gupta's conodonts and their geological settings turned out to be a major issue.{{cite journal |last1=Webster |first1=Gary D. |last2=Rexroad |first2=Carl B. |last3=Talent |first3=John A. |date=May 1993 |title=An evaluation of the V. J. Gupta conodont papers |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-paleontology/article/abs/an-evaluation-of-the-v-j-gupta-conodont-papers/1BDCFBE89DCC5DAAF89FC83B247680CE |journal=Journal of Paleontology |volume=67 |issue=3 |pages=486–493 |doi=10.1017/S0022336000036933 |bibcode=1993JPal...67..486W |issn=0022-3360|url-access=subscription }} What Agarwal and Singh revealed next were the wildly improper descriptions of fossils and their locations in most of Gupta's papers; the same species reported in one paper was absent in another report of the same location. The reported information was so comprehensively chaotic and inconsistent that they concluded: "These anomalies in different papers by the same author/s is not understandable, unless they are serious printing mistakes."

Talent made another discovery in 1987 when he visited Paris. He went to Alain Carion's shop of minerals, fossils and meteorites, named the Carion Minéraux on Île Saint-Louis.{{cite web |title=Carion Minéraux: Minéraux, Fossiles et Météorites |url=https://www-carionmineraux-com.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc |access-date=2023-12-28 |website=www-carionmineraux-com.translate.goog}} He purchased many fossils there including some extinct snails, the ammonoids, that came from a fossil site near Erfoud, Morocco. He quickly discerned that the Moroccan fossils were very similar to, if not identical, to Gupta's fossils from the Himalayas. It was from then on that Talent decided to compile the discrepancies found in Gupta's research. With his former student and associate Glenn Anthony Brock, he meticulously reanalysed Gupta's published works, establishing that there was not just one or a few errors, but that Gupta was a prolific fraudster; falsifying, recycling, and plagiarising research data within hundreds of publications. One notable observation by Brock was that Gupta had used images of fossils analyzed by British geologists in the early 20th century, explaining that: "[And] all that Gupta had done was take some scissors and cut out the specimens, put them down on a new plate with a new number on them and claim them as his own – and these were samples from somewhere very different, from parts of Somalia."

File:Youngolepis praecursor Fig1.jpg, a fish fossil from Yunnan, China, which Gupta claimed was also present in the Himalayas.]]

In 1980, Gupta met Philippe Janvier at the Museum of Natural History in Paris{{cite journal |last=Janvier |first=Philippe |date=1989-09-07 |title=The Peripatetic Fossils: Part 3 — Breakdown of trust |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/341016a0 |journal=Nature |volume=341 |issue=6237 |pages=16 |doi=10.1038/341016a0 |bibcode=1989Natur.341...16J |issn=1476-4687}} and showed him "a magnificent fossil fish skull" which he brought along. Gupta had travelled to China, but claimed that he had collected the fossil from Zanskar, Ladakh, at the foothills of the Himalayas. Recognising the fossil as a new species, Janvier made the identification, and with Gupta submitted the discovery to the journal Recent Researches in Geology the next year.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xjg7AAAAIAAJ |title=Recent Researches in Geology: A Two-volume Collection of Papers in Honour of Professor M.R. Sahni |date=1980 |publisher=Hindustan Publishing Corporation (I) |pages=68–80}} Shortly after this, Janvier went to Sweden where he met Zhang Miman (Meemann Chang), director of the Chinese Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, who was working on some fish fossils from China. Janvier immediately noticed that some of these fossils were exactly like the one he and Gupta had recently described. When inquired, Miman explained to him that the particular specimen was an extinct Devonian coelacanth species she named Youngolepis praecursor (formally reported by Miman in 1995{{cite journal |last1=Zhu |first1=Min |last2=Fan |first2=Junhang |date=1995 |title=Youngolepis from the Xishancun Formation (Early Lochkovian) of Qujing; China |url=https://www.academia.edu/1810052 |journal=Geobios |volume=28 |pages=293–299 |bibcode=1995Geobi..28..293Z |doi=10.1016/S0016-6995(95)80130-8 |issn=0016-6995}}) that was found in Yunnan and North Vietnam, and so common in those regions that the fossils were frequently used as gifts to visitors. Chang had already published the discovery in January 1981.{{cite journal |last1=Zhang |first1=Mi-Man |last2=Xu |first2=Xiao-Bei |date=1981-01-20 |title="A new crossopterygian, Youngolepis praecursor, gen. et sp. nov., from Lower Devonian of E. Yunnan, China". |url=https://www.sciengine.com/Math%20A0/doi/10.1360/ya1981-24-1-89 |journal=Scientia Sinica |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=89–99 |doi=10.1360/ya1981-24-1-89 |doi-broken-date=30 November 2024 |issn=0250-7870}} Janvier told Gupta to hold their publication, but it was eventually published in 1982 with a few modifications based on Chang's paper.{{cite journal |last1=Gupta |first1=V. J |last2=Janvier |first2=P. |date=1982 |title=An osteolepid fish from the middle Devonian of Zanskar, Ladakh, India |url=https://pascal-francis.inist.fr/vibad/index.php?action=getRecordDetail&idt=9515982 |journal=Recent Researches in Geology |volume=8 |pages=66–80}}{{cite journal |last=Gupta |first=Vishwa Jit |date=1990 |title=A response to the co-authors |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/343307a0 |journal=Nature |volume=343 |issue=6256 |pages=307–308 |doi=10.1038/343307a0 |bibcode=1990Natur.343..307G |issn=0028-0836|url-access=subscription }} Uncomfortable with the purported origin of the "Himalayan" fossil, Janvier published a note of concern in Bulletin of the Indian Geologists Association,{{cite journal |last1=Gupta |first1=V. J. |last2=Janvier |first2=P. |date=1981 |title=Remarks on an osteolepid fish from the Devonian of Zanskar, Ladakh |url=https://pascal-francis.inist.fr/vibad/index.php?action=getRecordDetail&idt=PASCALGEODEBRGM8320471315 |journal=Bulletin Indian Geologists' Association |volume=141 |page=81}} remarking that Chang's and Gupta's specimens were "strikingly similar." Although Gupta avowed that he had never been to the fossil site in China, it was known that he had had a trip to China just prior to going to France. Janvier was convinced that Gupta had fooled him: "Now, there is no evidence that Gupta brought the fish fossil with him from China, but I'm 99% sure he did."

File:Ophiceras sakuntala Trias inf Himalaya.jpg, from the Himalayas.]]

Gupta's practice of forgery was first publicly exposed at the International Symposium on the Devonian System held at Calgary, Canada, from 17 to 20 August 1987.{{cite book |last1=McMillan |first1=N. J. |url=https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/biblio/6935963 |title=Devonian of the world: Proceedings of the second international symposium on the Devonian System, Calgary, Canada |last2=Embry |first2=A. F. |last3=Glass |first3=D. J. |publisher=Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists |year=1988 |isbn=0-920230-47-4 |location=Calgary (Canada) |pages=581–588}} The week before, Talent came across a paper by Gupta and German palaeontologist Heinrich Karl Erben (Institut für Paläontologie, Bonn) published in Paläontologische Zeitschrift in 1983 reporting a series of Devonian ammonoids from Himachal Pradesh.{{cite journal |last1=Gupta |first1=V. J. |last2=Erben |first2=H. K. |date=1983-06-01 |title=A late devonian ammonoid faunula from himachal pradesh, india |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03031752 |journal=Paläontologische Zeitschrift |volume=57 |issue=1 |pages=93–102 |doi=10.1007/BF03031752 |bibcode=1983PalZ...57...93G |s2cid=129440526 |url-access=subscription }} When Talent presented his own research, he added a discussion on the Himalayan fossils, including Gupta's ammonoids and those from Morocco, displaying them side by side on the screen; they appeared "exactly the same".{{cite web |date=3 September 2005 |title=What happens to the Whistleblowers? |url=http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s1451250.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050911052826/http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s1451250.htm |archive-date=11 September 2005 |publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation}} Another case of identical fossils presented by Talent was from Gupta's reports of two conodonts in 1975, allegedly collected from two sites {{Convert|600|km|abbr=in}} apart and described in two different papers. One scientist pointed to Gupta, who was sitting on the front row, and said: "Well, how do you explain having exactly the same fossils in two localities 600 kilometres apart?" An infuriated Gupta stormed out of the room and re-entered clenching his fist trying to punch Talent, but was prevented by other participants. He subsequently shouted to the organisers, demanding the list of all participants and Talent's manuscript.

The committee of the Calgary symposium informed the Vice Chancellor of Panjab University of the incident as well as the associated issues with Gupta's research, but no action appeared to have been taken. In spite of the public exposition, only fossil experts at the symposium knew of the case, and Gupta continued to publish research papers.

The director of Naturmuseum Senckenberg in Frankfurt, Germany, had attended the Calgary symposium and asked Talent to allow publication of his presentation; he agreed. The account was published in the serial Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg as a 50-page article "Silurian and Devonian of India, Nepal and Bhutan: Biostratigraphic and Palaeobiogeographic Anomalies" in 1988. Picket, Rajendra Kumar Goel, and Arvind Kumar Jain of the University of Roorkee, India, co-authored the paper.{{cite journal |last1=Talent |first1=John A. |last2=Goel |first2=Rajendra K. |last3=Jain |first3=Arvind K. |last4=Pickett |first4=John W. |date=1988-11-01 |title=Silurian and Devonian of India, Nepal and Bhutan: Biostratigraphic and Palaeobiogeographic Anomalies |url=https://www.schweizerbart.de/publications/detail/isbn/9783510611591/Silurian-and-Devonian-of-India-Nepal-and-Bhutan-Biostratigraphic-and-Palaeobiogeographic-Anomalies |access-date=2023-12-29 |journal=Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg |volume=106 |pages=1–57 |issn=0341-4116}} The document exposed over a hundred fossil frauds in Gupta's research, involving five books and 458 articles, published with 128 co-authors over a period of 28 years. However, the Courier had a limited circulation and the news was not widely read.

The case became global news when Nature invited Talent to publish a summary of the Courier article. In a three-page commentary, Talent provided reasons to suspect that Gupta's fossils were bought, stolen or received as gifts from various parts of the world, and not authentically collected from the Himalayan region, and that Gupta's research was a "quagmire of palaeontological disinformation." Published on 20 April 1989, Talent's headline in Nature runs "The case of the peripatetic fossils". and the commentary concluded as follows:

{{blockquote|Rhinos in Rio? Kangaroos in Kashmir? Well, something as remarkable biogeographically is said to have occurred. At first sight it might appear that a whole circus of exotica – mainly invertebrate – was let loose and fossilized seriatim in the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic sequences of the Himalayas. Earth scientists in general, and palaeontologists in particular, have blissfully assumed that, apart from the Piltdown Man, their science was largely free from attempts to pollute the literature. There have been cases of practical jokes, and examples of misappropriation of materials by individuals over-eager to publish. But compared with the cornucopia of items disgorged into the stratigraphy of the Himalayan region over the past 25 years, such instances are mere bagatelles.}}

This publication immediately prompted media investigations. The most influential was from Science as its news editor Roger Lewin made journalistic enquiries, contacting the scientists involved. Lewin published his report on 21 April 1989, which included the following from Talent:

{{blockquote|The database for the Silurian and Devonian of the Himalaya has become so extensively marred by error, inconsistency and implausibility as to throw grave doubts on the scientific validity of any conclusions that might be drawn from it. An appropriate way to approach this problem and clarify many of the questions raised would be through an independent fact-finding commission set up to probe most of the legions of paleontologically anomalous and suspect reports.}}

The story became widely known from Nature and Science articles, especially by a series of four Nature articles titled "the peripatetic fossils" between 1989 and 1990; a defence from Gupta, comments by Arun Deep Ahluwalia, S. B. Bhatia, Udai K. Bassi, and Philippe Janvier and John Bruce Waterhouse, and last by Talent's summary.{{cite journal |last=Talent |first=John A. |title=The peripatetic fossils: part 5 |journal=Nature |volume=343 |issue=6257 |date=1990 |issn=0028-0836 |doi=10.1038/343405a0 |pages=405–406|bibcode=1990Natur.343..405T }} It was these reports that brought the case to an international level.

The principal fossils of dispute were the conodonts.{{cite journal |last=Ruban |first=Dmitry A. |date=2022-06-01 |title=A review of the Late Triassic conodont conundrum: survival beyond biotic perturbations |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/s12549-021-00505-z |journal=Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments |volume=102 |issue=2 |pages=373–382 |doi=10.1007/s12549-021-00505-z |bibcode=2022PdPe..102..373R |s2cid=237366862 |issn=1867-1608|url-access=subscription }} One of the first and best-understood conodont fossils was from Amsdell Creek in New York, USA, which was determined as Devonian in age.{{cite journal |last=Müller |first=Klaus J. |date=1956 |title=Taxonomy, Nomenclature, Orientation, and Stratigraphic Evaluation of Conodonts |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1300586 |journal=Journal of Paleontology |volume=30 |issue=6 |pages=1324–1340 |jstor=1300586 |issn=0022-3360}} With the help of the English geologists Frank H. T. Rhodes and R. L. Austin, Gupta reported a discovery titled "Devonian Conodonts from Kashmir" in Nature in 1967, the first conodont report from India,{{cite journal |last1=Gupta |first1=V. J. |last2=Rhodes |first2=F. H. T. |last3=Austin |first3=R. L. |date=1967-10-30 |title=Devonian Conodonts from Kashmir |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/216468a0 |journal=Nature |volume=216 |issue=5114 |pages=468–469 |doi=10.1038/216468a0 |bibcode=1967Natur.216..468G |s2cid=4268562 |issn=1476-4687|url-access=subscription }} and continued to report discoveries of conodonts in and around Kashmir.{{cite book |last=Gupta |first=V. |chapter=Permo-Triassic Boundary in the Himalaya |date=1974 |editor-last=Zapfe |editor-first=Helmuth |title=Die Stratigraphie der alpin-mediterranen Trias / The Stratigraphy of the Alpine-Mediterranean Triassic |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-7091-4497-8_11 |series=Schriftenreihe der Erdwissenschaftlichen Kommissionen |volume=2 |location=Vienna |publisher=Springer |pages=97–99 |doi=10.1007/978-3-7091-4497-8_11 |isbn=978-3-7091-4497-8}}{{cite book |last1=Gupta |first1=V. J. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KC81wR8LXWoC&dq=Gupta+conodonts+1967&pg=PA147 |title=The Carboniferous of the World |last2=Waterhouse |first2=J.B. |last3=Bhargava |first3=O.N. |date=1983 |publisher=IGME |isbn=978-84-398-5670-2 |editor-last=Días |editor-first=Carlos Martínez |pages=147–151 |chapter=Indian Subcontinent |editor-last2=España |editor-first2=Instituto Geológico y Minero de}} According to Talent, "it is statistically beyond the bounds of possibility" that Devonian conodonts were present in the Himalayas, and that Gupta's specimens probably were those of the Amsdell Creek. Klapper concurred, saying, "[It] is impossible to be 100% certain that the conodonts Gupta reports on come from New York and not the Himalayas as he claims, but I am as certain as I can be."

Gary D. Webster, Carl B. Rexroad and Talent published "An evaluation of the V. J. Gupta conodont papers" in 1993 based on investigation of 19 of Gupta's collaborators. They found that Gupta had recycled his conodont reports in 15 publications.{{cite journal |last1=Webster |first1=Gary D. |last2=Rexroad |first2=Carl B. |last3=Talent |first3=John A. |date=1993-05-01 |title=An evaluation of the V. J. Gupta conodont papers |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022336000036933/type/journal_article |journal=Journal of Paleontology |volume=67 |issue=3 |pages=486–493 |doi=10.1017/S0022336000036933 |issn=0022-3360 |jstor=1306034 |bibcode=1993JPal...67..486W |s2cid=130317390|url-access=subscription }}

Talent was convinced that Gupta's ammonoid specimens originally came from a fossil site near Erfoud, Morocco. The characteristic features showed their identity. Talent had come across the same Moroccan ammonoids at the fossil shop in Paris and noticed that they exactly matched the images Gupta had used in publications. He also discovered that Gupta had claimed the source of the conodonts and ammonoids as from the same rock strata, which could not have been the case since the two groups of animals lived 15 million years apart. By May 1989, Gupta emphatically wrote Erben that the fossils were authentically of the Himalayas, prompting Erben to make a statement in Paläontologische Zeitschrift defending his position, stating: "Whatever the truth in this highly detestable affair may be, my personal responsibility in the paper under discussion has been, and still is, restricted to its taxonomical and morphological parts as well as to the illustrations."{{cite journal |last=Erben |first=H. K. |date=1989-12-01 |title=Statement concerning a paper on Devonian allegedly Himalayan ammonoids |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02989519 |journal=Paläontologische Zeitschrift |volume=63 |issue=3 |pages=335 |doi=10.1007/BF02989519 |bibcode=1989PalZ...63..335E |s2cid=129369116 |url-access=subscription }}

Webster published "An evaluation of the V. J. Gupta echinoderm papers, 1971–1989" in 1991 and asserted that the observation "leaves no doubt that these fraudulent practices were knowingly continued over the past 25 years." He found that 28 of Gupta's papers contained dubious information on the fossil discoveries.{{cite journal |last=Webster |first=Gary D. |date=1991-11-25 |title=An evaluation of the V. J. Gupta echinoderm papers, 1971–1989 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S002233600003331X/type/journal_article |journal=Journal of Paleontology |volume=65 |issue=6 |pages=1006–1008 |doi=10.1017/S002233600003331X |issn=0022-3360 |jstor=1305833 |bibcode=1991JPal...65.1006W |s2cid=132465759|url-access=subscription }}

Gupta was careful in his research publications, asking eminent scientists to collaborate. He provided the fossils and the basic geological details, and allowed his collaborators to make the fossil identification, so that they became "unsuspecting partners in crime", as Bhargava lamented,{{cite journal |last1=Shah |first1=S.K. |last2=Bhargava |first2=O. N. |title=Himalayan Fossil Fraud: A View From The Galleries |journal=Journal of the Geological Society of India |volume=82 |issue=6 |date=1 December 2013 |issn=0974-6889 |doi=10.1007/s12594-013-0213-5 |pages=722–723|bibcode=2013JGSI...82..722B }} or unwitting "partners in the deception", according to Bangalore Puttaiya Radhakrishna, editor of the Journal of the Geological Society of India. As in his first major publication in Nature in 1967, Gupta was able to convince Rhodes from the University College of Swansea (later president of Cornell University) and Austin from the University of Southampton. Gary Webster at Washington State University had coauthored nine of Gupta's papers, and asserted that his identification of the crinoid fossils was genuine, but later conceded that he was "virtually certain" they were obtained from places other than the Himalayas. He declared that Gupta had "willfully tried to dupe the scientific community". By 1989, Gupta had collaborated with 128 scientists around the world, including Berry, Director of the University of California, Berkeley's Museum of Paleontology, Kiril J. Budurov of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences,{{Cite journal |last1=Budurov |first1=K. J. |last2=Gupta |first2=V. J. |last3=Kachroo |first3=R. K.|date=1984-08-01 |title=Some Permian Conodonts from the Zewan Formation, Kashmir Himalaya |journal=Journal of the Geological Society of India |volume=25 |issue=8|pages=533–536 |doi=10.17491/jgsi/1984/250808 |bibcode=1984JGSI...25..533B |issn=0974-6889}} Michael E. Brookfield of the University of Guelph in Ontario,{{Cite journal |last1=Brookfield |first1=M. E. |last2=Gupta |first2=V. J.|date=1988|title=The Devonian of Northern Gondwanaland: A Himalayan Viewpoint and Terrane Analysis|url=https://archives.datapages.com/data/cspg_sp/data/014/014001/579_cspgsp014a0579.htm|journal=Devonian of the World: Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on the Devonian System — Memoir 14 |volume=1|pages=579–589}} Erben,{{Cite journal |last1=Gupta |first1=V. J. |last2=Erben |first2=H. K. |date=1983-06-01 |title=A late devonian ammonoid faunula from himachal pradesh, india |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03031752 |journal=Paläontologische Zeitschrift |volume=57 |issue=1 |pages=93–102 |doi=10.1007/BF03031752 |bibcode=1983PalZ...57...93G |s2cid=129440526|url-access=subscription }} Gerhard R. Fuchs of the Geological Survey of Austria,{{Cite journal |last1=Fuchs |first1=G. |last2=Gupta |first2=V.J. |date=1971|title=Palaeozoic stratigraphy of Kashmir, Kishtwar and Chamba (Panjab Himalayas) |url=https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/VerhGeolBundesanstalt_1971_0068-0097.pdf |journal=Verhandlungen der Geologischen Bundesanstalt|volume=1|issue=6|pages=68–97}} Andrzej Gaździcki of the Polish Academy of Sciences,{{Cite journal |last1=Gaździcki |first1=Andrzej |last2=Gupta |first2=V.J.|date=1981|title=Triassic foraminifers Involutinidae from West Carpathians and Himalayas - its stratigraphic and paleobiogeographic implications |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283854385 |journal=Bulletin of the Geological Society of India |volume=14 |issue=2 |pages=101–106}} Janvier,{{Cite journal |last=Janvier |first=Philippe |date=1997 |title=In retrospect chosen by Philippe Janvier |journal=Nature |volume=389 |issue=6652 |pages=688|doi=10.1038/39519 |issn=1476-4687|doi-access=free|bibcode=1997Natur.389..688J }} Makoto Kato of Hokkaido University,{{Cite journal|last1=Kato|first1=Makoto |last2=Gupta |first2=Vishwa Jit |date=1989|title=Late Palaeozoic Corals from the Himalayas |url=https://eprints.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/dspace/handle/2115/36757 |journal=Journal of the Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University. Series 4, Geology and Mineralogy|volume=22 |issue=3 |pages=399–424 |issn=0018-3474}} Rhodes,{{Cite journal|last1=Gupta|first1=V. J.|last2=Rhodes|first2=F. H. T.|last3=Austin|first3=R. L.|date=1967-10-30 |title=Devonian Conodonts from Kashmir|url=https://www.nature.com/articles/216468a0 |journal=Nature |volume=216 |issue=5114 |pages=468–469 |doi=10.1038/216468a0 |bibcode=1967Natur.216..468G |issn=1476-4687 |s2cid=4268562|url-access=subscription }} Jovan Stöcklin from Zurich,{{Cite journal|last1=Gupta |first1=V.J.|last2=Stöcklin|first2=J.|date=1978 |title=Stratigraphy and structure of the Phulchauki-Chandragiri area, Nepal |journal=Recent Researches in Geology |volume=7 |pages=263−275}} Geneviève Termier of the University of Paris,{{Cite journal |last1=Gupta |first1=V. J. |last2=Termier |first2=Geneviere |date=1983-04-01 |title=Middle Devonian Corals from Central Bhutan |url=https://www.geosocindia.com/index.php/jgsi/article/view/65268 |journal=Journal of the Geological Society of India |volume=24 |issue=4 |pages=212–215 |doi=10.17491/jgsi/1983/240406 |bibcode=1983JGSI...24..212G |issn=0974-6889|url-access=subscription }} Susan Turner of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne,{{Cite journal|last1=Gupta |first1=V. J. |last2=Turner |first2=Susan |date=1973 |title=Oldest Indian Fish |journal=Geological Magazine |volume=110 |issue=5 |pages=483–484 |doi=10.1017/S001675680003627X |issn=1469-5081 |doi-access=free|bibcode=1973GeoM..110..483G }} Waterhouse of the University of Queensland,{{Cite journal |last1=Waterhouse |first1=J. B. |last2=Gupta |first2=V. J. |date=1979-09-01 |title=Early Permian Fossils from Southern Tibet, Like Faunas from Peninsular India and Lesser Himalayas of Garhwal |journal=Journal of the Geological Society of India |volume=20 |issue=9 |pages=461–464 |doi=10.17491/jgsi/1979/200906 |bibcode=1979JGSI...20..461W |issn=0974-6889}} and Gary Dean Webster of the Washington State University.{{Cite journal |last1=Gupta |first1=V.J. |last2=Webster |first2=G. D. |date=1980|title=Palaeozoic crinoids from Ladakh, Himalaya, India |url=https://pascal-francis.inist.fr/vibad/index.php?action=getRecordDetail&idt=PASCALGEODEBRGM8120347802 |journal=Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia e Stratigrafia |volume=83 |issue=1 |pages=1−18}} Gupta's most prolific foreign collaborator was Waterhouse who co-authored 19 research papers,{{Cite journal |last=Molina |first=Eustoquio |date=1994 |title=Vishwa Jit Gupta: El fraude de los fósiles reciclados abre el debate en el seno de la comunidad científica |trans-title=Vishwa Jit Gupta: The fraud of the recycled fossils opens debate in the heart of the scientific community |url=https://www.academia.edu/9281608 |journal=La Alternativa Racional |language=Spanish |volume=33 |pages=23–25}} followed by Webster with nine papers.

Gupta's intention in associating with notable scientists was manifest when he defended his works, writing in Nature that it "is seldom possible to do fieldwork in the Himalayas by oneself" and gave a list of scientists he had teamed up with. He stressed repeatedly that he sought experts from various countries to corroborate his findings. In his Nature commentary, he stated that the graptolites reported in his earliest works were substantiated by Sir Cyril James Stubblefield, then director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, and that the fossil site had been verified by his doctoral supervisor Shani in October 1964. Shahni's companions and travel records indicated that he did visit Kashmir at the time indicated, but only to attend a scientific seminar. Ashok Shahni, son of Shahni and colleague of Gupta, vouchsafed the alibi: "Sahni neither visited the graptolite localities nor did he accompany the post-seminar field excursion."{{Cite journal |last=Sahni |first=Ashoki |date=November 1989 |title=Sahni visit denied |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/342338c0 |journal=Nature |volume=342 |issue=6248 |pages=338 |doi=10.1038/342338c0 |bibcode=1989Natur.342..338S |issn=0028-0836}}

In another case, Gupta investigated the lower Phuchauki in Nepal with Vinod Singh Chhetri from the Department of Mines and Geology, Kathmandu, in 1974. He published four solo papers between 1975 and 1976 including three on conodont finds. In 1977, he published a geological study in Chayanica Geologica with Chhetri's name on it but without the latter's knowledge or consent.{{Cite journal |last1=Gupta |first1=V.J. |last2=Chhetri |first2=V.S.|date=1977|title=Geology of the area around Phulchauki, Kathmandu, Nepal |journal=Chayanica Geologica |volume=3|issue=2 |pages=133−146}}{{Cite journal |last1=Talent |first1=John A. |last2=Dangol |first2=Gopal M. S. |last3=Chhetri |first3=Vinod Singh |date=1991-07-01 |title=Biostratigraphic reports - Spurious and Dubious - from Nepal |url=https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/JNGS/article/view/32577 |journal=Journal of Nepal Geological Society |volume=7 |doi=10.3126/jngs.v7i0.32577 |issn=2676-1378}} When Chhetri came to know of the publication, he requested Gupta for the data and fossil specimens so that he could confirm them; he never got a response. Gupta continued to report other fossils from different locations in Nepal, including a series of mammals from Gidhniya in western Nepal.{{Cite journal |last=Gupta |first=Vishwa J. |date=1984-01-01 |title=Plio-pleistocene mammals from Gidhniya village Western Nepal |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016699584800212 |journal=Geobios |volume=17 |issue=4 |pages=493–499 |doi=10.1016/S0016-6995(84)80021-2 |bibcode=1984Geobi..17..493G |issn=0016-6995|url-access=subscription }} Chhetri affirmed that Gupta never explored Nepal other than Phuchauki (not even the upper area, contrary to Gupta's report{{Cite journal |last=Gupta |first=V.J.| date=1975 |title=Upper Devonian conodonts from Phulchauki, Nepal |url=https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/RIPS/article/download/13323/12468/39437&ved |journal=Himalayan Geology |volume=5 |pages=153−168}}), and never collected any fossil of interest. To make the matter even more convoluted, Talent discovered from Ziegler that he had trained Gupta on conodont analysis at Marburg. Ziegler recalled Gupta having conodonts similar to those of Amsdell Creek; asked why he was interested in the American fossils, Gupta phlegmatically answered that they were from Nepal. That was a year before Gupta's Nepal exploration, in 1973.

One modus operandi of Gupta was to keep the locations of the fossils vague, so that it would be difficult for peers to vindicate or refute the reports. When other scientists investigated, they never found the exact location or the fossils in the area from where they had allegedly been collected. Gupta had shrewdly assumed that the Indian Government would restrict the use of detailed topographic or army maps for strategic reasons around the Himalayas, especially for foreigners. He once said: "As an Indian, it is not possible for me to take such liberties [disclosing Himalayan maps to foreign scientists] and to go against the 'Law of the Land'."{{Cite journal |last=Gupta|first=V. J.|date=1990-06-01 |title=Discussion: Comments by V. J. Gupta |url=https://www.geosocindia.com/index.php/jgsi/article/view/66368 |journal=Journal of the Geological Society of India |pages=649–655 |doi=10.17491/jgsi/1990/350610 |issn=0974-6889|doi-access=free }}

Gupta was an unapologetic plagiarist and thief. His 1966 thesis contained fossil images from the 1908{{cite journal |last=Reed |first=F. R. Cowper |date=1908 |title=I.—Sedgwick Museum Notes: New Fossils from the Haverford-west District. VIII |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/geological-magazine/article/abs/isedgwick-museum-notes-new-fossils-from-the-haverfordwest-district-viii/C15E6E01673B105A0B25F77ADD333E73 |journal=Geological Magazine |volume=5 |issue=10 |pages=433–436 |doi=10.1017/S0016756800122368 |bibcode=1908GeoM....5..433R |s2cid=248537874 |issn=1469-5081|url-access=subscription }} and 1912{{cite book |last=Reed |first=F. R. Cowper |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FAWvQAAACAAJ |title=Ordovician and Silurian Fossils from the Central Himalayas |date=1912 |publisher=Geological Survey}} reports of Frederick Richard Cowper Reed, a British geologist who had surveyed the Himalayan and Burma regions. The same images were used in two of Gupta's papers published in Panjab University Research Bulletin, in volumes 20 and 21. Gupta's conodont fossils most likely came from the Amsdell Creek specimens at Aberystwyth University in Wales where he had done research work.{{cite journal |last=Wyatt |first=Antony R. |date=1990-06-01 |title=V. J. Gupta and the Aberystwyth Fossil Collections |journal=Journal of the Geological Society of India |volume=35 |issue=6 |pages=587–592 |doi=10.17491/jgsi/1990/350604 |bibcode=1990JGSI...35..587W |issn=0974-6889}} In 1992, researchers at the Aberystwyth University confided to Nature that Gupta's fossils were identical to those missing from their collection.{{cite journal |date=1992-02-20 |title=Indian rope trick |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/355660b0 |journal=Nature |volume=355 |issue=6362 |pages=660 |doi=10.1038/355660b0 |bibcode=1992Natur.355R.660. |issn=1476-4687}} One of Brock's observations was that Gupta had used fossil images in several instances from the reports of British geologists in the early 20th century: "And all that Gupta had done was take some scissors and cut out the specimens, put them down on a new plate with a new number on them and claim them as his own – and these were samples from somewhere very different, from parts of Somalia."

In a Nature commentary, Arun Deep Ahluwalia, Gupta's colleague and co-author in several papers,{{cite journal |last1=Ahluwalia |first1=A. D |last2=Budurov |first2=K. J. |last3=Gupta |first3=V. J. |last4=Kanwar |first4=S. S. |date=1982 |title=Some remarks on the new find of lower triassic Conodonts from Lahaul and Spiti regions, Himachal Pradesh, India |url=https://pascal-francis.inist.fr/vibad/index.php?action=getRecordDetail&idt=9515997 |journal=Recent Researches in Geology |pages=274–278}}{{cite journal |last1=Ahluwalia |first1=Arun D. |last2=Gupta |first2=Vishwa J. |date=1988-01-01 |title=Tal Formation of Himalaya - a century old stratigraphic riddle nearing solution |url=https://www.schweizerbart.de/papers/nos/detail/21/86659/Tal_Formation_of_Himalaya_a_century_old_stratigraphic_riddle_nearing_solution |journal=Newsletters on Stratigraphy |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=49–58 |doi=10.1127/nos/21/1989/49|bibcode=1988NewSt..21...49A |url-access=subscription }}{{cite journal |last1=Ahluwalia |first1=A. D. |last2=Gupta |first2=V.J. |last3=Budurov |first3=K. J. |last4=Kanwar |first4=S. S. |date=1982 |title=Devonian conodonts from Spiti Himalaya, India |journal=Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia e Stratigrafia |volume=88 |issue=2 |pages=20166 |doi=10.54103/2039-4942/20166 |issn=2039-4942 |doi-access=free }} admitted that Talent's accusations were valid. He disclosed that once during the visit of their Bulgarian friend K. J. Budurov (whom Gupta later described as the "most callous" collaborator) to Panjab University in 1980, Gupta apparently planted fossils in the limestone samples. As Budurov was about to examine the tiny fossils, Gupta insisted that he prepare fresh samples to let the samples settle down in a solution. Ahluwalia recollected that he had not seen the fossils from that particular sample earlier, but as Gupta "prepared" it, numerous conodonts became visible. Ahluwalia did not suspect any misdeed at the time but in hindsight was "rather embarrassed at having initially missed the assemblage, but was happy at the 'discovery'." The three of them published the discovery in two papers in 1982. Following Talent's allegations, Ahluwalia later processed the original rock sample and could find no fossils at all. He also cited several instances of fossils collected and reported from sites which Gupta apparently never explored.

Another colleague, Shashi Bhushan Bhatia, recalled his suspicion when Gupta told him that the rock samples from Kurig were of Devonian age, and gave Bhatia ostracod fossils that he claimed were from the same sediments. Bhatia saw two irregularities. One, his own exploration of the same site gave a much younger geological age, Permo-Carboniferous, and he could not recall a single instance of Gupta visiting Kurig. In another, as Gupta requested, Bhatia took the samples to the British Museum of Natural History in London. There Bhatia analysed the specimens and found that they were the same as those from Haragan Formation in Oklahoma.{{cite journal |last=Bhatia |first=S. B. |date=1989-09-07 |title=Early Devonian ostracodes |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/341015a0 |journal=Nature |volume=341 |issue=6237 |pages=15 |doi=10.1038/341015a0 |bibcode=1989Natur.341Q..15B |issn=1476-4687}} Yet, in good faith, he, Jain and Gupta reported the discovery of the Himalayan ostracod in 1982.{{cite journal |last1=Bhatia |first1=S. B |last2=Jain |first2=S. P. |last3=Gupta |first3=V. J. |date=1982 |title=Lower Devonian ostracode fauna from Spiti and its palaeobiogeographical significance |url=https://pascal-francis.inist.fr/vibad/index.php?action=getRecordDetail&idt=9423200 |journal=Miscellaneous Publication - Geological Survey of India |pages=283–293 |issn=0579-4706 |via=Pascal and Francis}} When the controversy broke out in 1989, Bhatia consulted Robert Folke Lundin at Arizona State University, who confirmed that the Himalayan ostracods were the same as the American specimens that he had described in 1968.{{Cite book |url=https://libcat.colorado.edu/Record/b2860582/Details?sid=21552470 |title=Ostracodes of the Haragan formation (Devonian) in Oklahoma |last=Lundin |first=Robert F. |date=1968 |publisher=University of Oklahoma |series=Oklahoma Geological Survey Bulletin |pages=116}} On the same sediments, another collaborator, Udai K. Bassi of the Geological Survey of India, later verified that Kurig does not contain Devonian deposits but a much younger Carboniferous sediment,{{cite journal |last=Bassi |first=Udai K. |date=1989-09-07 |title=The Peripatetic Fossils: Part 3 — The Kinnaur region |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/341015b0 |journal=Nature |volume=341 |issue=6237 |pages=15–16 |doi=10.1038/341015b0 |bibcode=1989Natur.341R..15B |s2cid=44644440 |issn=1476-4687|url-access=subscription }} and that the border and village records did not have any mention of Gupta visiting the site. In the same vein, Gupta and Erben reported in 1983 the occurrence of Carnian (298 to 272 million years old) conodonts and ammonoids from Khimokul La.{{cite journal |last=Gupta |first=V. J. |date=1983-03-01 |title=Carnian Conodonts from Tidong Valley, Kinnaur District, Himachal Pradesh |journal=Journal of the Geological Society of India |volume=24 |issue=3 |pages=156–158 |doi=10.17491/jgsi/1983/240304 |bibcode=1983JGSI...24..156G |issn=0974-6889}} Bassi, who had surveyed the area several times, attested that there is no Carnian sediment there and that the check-post register or the villagers had no record of Gupta, Erben or any foreigner.

Talent wrote that Gupta "inundated geological and biogeographical literature of the Himalayas with a blizzard of disinformation so extensive as to render the literature almost useless."{{cite news |last= Kumar |first=Sanjay |date=2021-03-28 |title=India's paleontologists fight destruction of its fossil riches |work=Science |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/india-s-paleontologists-fight-destruction-its-fossil-riches |doi=10.1126/science.aat7646}} Gupta said to The New York Times that he had invited Talent to Panjab University and the Himalayan sites to verify the research findings following the Calgary incident,{{cite journal |last=Jit Gupta |first=Vishwa |date=1989-09-07 |title=The peripatetic fossils: part 2 |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/341011a0 |journal=Nature |volume=341 |issue=6237 |pages=11–12 |doi=10.1038/341011a0 |bibcode=1989Natur.341...11J |s2cid=186244440 |issn=0028-0836|url-access=subscription }} but he had declined. In trying to undermine the accusations, he described the affair as "minor disagreements over taxonomy among experts." He defended himself by claiming Talent's allegations as "malicious bias and professional jealousy" based on lies that were "building up a story without any basis." He added, "We've had differences for the past 20 years, and he's trying to cash in on them." Talent admitted that he did decline Gupta's invitation as he felt it was more appropriate for other scientists to make inspections independently.

In the Science report, Webster admitted having already had the information on the similarity between the Himalayan fossils and those in America and Europe, especially the crinoids which were found only in the United States. Commenting on Talent's Calgary speech, he conceded: "I am now virtually certain that most of these specimens did come from places other than the Himalayas. I certainly should have been more wary." Janvier stated that he had asked Gupta to make a site expedition himself to where the fossils were collected, to which Gupta replied that it was not possible for political reasons. In his commentary "Breakdown of trust" in Nature, he decried the lack of awareness on scientific frauds and wrote: "The Gupta case may just be a 'big noise'."

Erben responded to Lewin's report claiming his innocence in Science, while admitting that Talent could be right, but blamed him for "zealous exaggerations" as Talent trusted a Paris shopkeeper rather than him. While avowing that he and Gupta were qualified scientists, he disparaged Talent as "without qualifications". He retorted: "However, while really cogent evidence is, indeed, lacking, the circumstantial evidence assembled by Talent seems to be rather convincing."{{cite journal |last=Erben |first=Heinrich K. |date=1989-09-15 |title=Carelessness, or Good Faith? |url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.245.4923.1165.c |journal=Science |volume=245 |issue=4923 |pages=1165–1166 |doi=10.1126/science.245.4923.1165.c |issn=0036-8075|url-access=subscription }} Talent replied, blaming Erben for ignoring or not being aware of a series of fossils Gupta had produced, and for trying to downplay the fraud allegations. He mentioned that the Moroccan-type ammonoids were available in large quantities not only in Paris, but also in Sydney, Australia, which Erben could have investigated.{{cite journal |last=Talent |first=John A. |date=1989-11-10 |title=The "Misplaced" Fossils |url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.246.4931.740.b |journal=Science |volume=246 |issue=4931 |pages=740–741 |doi=10.1126/science.246.4931.740.b |pmid=17748685 |s2cid=239850370 |issn=0036-8075|url-access=subscription }}

Writing in Nature, Gupta made a defensive response in September 1989. He stated that most of his explorations were done with other researchers, and that he was not alone in visiting the allegedly dubious sites. Referring to the Devonian fish which he had described with Janvier in 1981, he asserted that he had never met Chang or visited her institute, so that receiving the specimen as a gift was an implausibility. However, he misinterpreted Lewin's report, which simply said that Chang had explained the availability of the fossils in China and North Vietnam. He made a scathing remark:

{{blockquote|John Talent has made sweeping pronouncements on Himalayan geology. Yet he is not an authority on the subject. I can only conclude that his attack on me was made for two reasons – to draw attention to himself and to deflect criticism of his own failure to contribute to Himalayan geology.}}

A. K. Prasad, then director of Gupta's department at Panjab University, backed up Gupta, saying that Talent's accusation was "a conspiracy to denigrate a top Indian scientist".{{cite journal |last=Jayaraman |first=K. S. |date=1989-04-01 |title=Gupta affirms authenticity |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/338694a0 |journal=Nature |volume=338 |issue=6218 |pages=694 |doi=10.1038/338694a0 |bibcode=1989Natur.338..694J |issn=1476-4687}} On the other hand, Ahluwalia affirmed that the fossils were recycled and assigned made-up localities, commenting that "most of the doubts expressed by Talent are well-founded" and that it was a "great embarrassment" that made him want to retract the published reports which he and Budurov co-authored.{{cite journal |last=Ahluwalia |first=A. D. |date=1989-09-07 |title=The peripatetic fossils: part 3 – Upper Palaeozoic of Lahul-Spiti |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/341013a0 |journal=Nature |volume=341 |issue=6237 |pages=13–15 |doi=10.1038/341013a0 |s2cid=4351610 |issn=0028-0836|url-access=subscription }} Expressing his dismay on revealing Gupta's manipulation of data and fabricated specimens in a report he co-authored about the discovery of a conodont, Neogondollela regale,{{Cite journal |last1=Bassi |first1=U. K. |last2=Gupta |first2=V. J. |last3=Chopra |first3=S. |last4=Budurov|first4=K. J. |last5=Ahluwalia |first5=A. D. |date=1988 |title=Neogondolella regale from the Tidong Valley of Kinnaur, Himachal Himalaya, India |journal=Indian Geologists' Association Bulletin |volume=212 |pages=155−158}} Bassi considered withdrawal of the paper. The editor of Nature found Gupta's commentary unimpressive, noting that "close readings of the accusations and responses leaves the impression that Gupta's defence is flimsy."

The only collaborator to stand up for Gupta was Waterhouse. Calling Talent's accusation "A case of exaggeration", Waterhouse stated that Gupta's specimens were definitely collected from the Himalayas.{{cite book |last=Friedlander |first=Michael W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rwHFDwAAQBAJ&dq=himalayan+fossils+gupta&pg=PA135 |title=At The Fringes Of Science |date=2018-03-05 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-429-97071-9 |pages=135–136}} He asserted that the Himalayan research was reported with accurate locations, as he had verified the fossils and explored the fossil sites himself. He criticised Talent for never examining the actual fossils first-hand, and Ahluwalia for misrepresenting some of the reports. He defended Gupta by saying there could have been a bit of sloppy field and laboratory work but no fraudulent intention, while admitting that Gupta's geological descriptions (stratigraphy) were "often too coarse and too rushed." Commenting in Nature, he wrote: "The 'case' against Gupta is remarkably rich in bold metaphors and unproven assertions, and somewhat thin in scientific analysis."{{cite journal |last=Waterhouse |first=J. B. |date=1990-01-25 |title=The peripatetic fossils: part 4 |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/343305a0 |journal=Nature |volume=343 |issue=6256 |pages=305–307 |doi=10.1038/343305a0 |bibcode=1990Natur.343..305W |s2cid=2281453 |issn=1476-4687|url-access=subscription }}

Panjab University issued a circular in 1990 that "it is interested not in brushing the controversy under the carpet, but arriving at the truth." It sought help from major authorities including the University Grants Commission, Indian Council of Medical Research, Indian National Science Academy, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Department of Science and Technology, and Geological Survey of India.{{cite journal |date=1990 |title=Panjab University defends itself in Gupta affair |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24092918 |journal=Current Science |volume=59 |issue=5 |pages=244 |jstor=24092918 |issn=0011-3891}} Then in March that year, the university took a controversial decision by instituting a scientific expedition team, to be led by Gupta. The Geological Society of India was disappointed by the proposal, commenting: "We fail to understand why Gupta should have been asked to lead the expedition. Besides, it is beyond our comprehension as to how allegations of recycling can be proved or disproved in the field."{{cite journal |last=Radhakrishna |first=B. P. |date=1990 |title=Inaction on a Himalayan scandal |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24093708 |journal=Current Science |volume=59 |issue=9 |pages=441 |jstor=24093708 |issn=0011-3891}}

The Geological Society of India and the Society for Scientific Values independently investigated the case and submitted their reports to Panjab University in December 1990. In February 1991, the university accepted the allegations and Gupta was temporarily suspended from service in February 1991. The report of the Society for Scientific Values was kept confidential.{{cite journal |last=Jayaraman |first=K. S. |date=1991-02-01 |title=Gupta faces suspension |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/349645a0 |journal=Nature |volume=349 |issue=6311 |pages=645 |doi=10.1038/349645a0 |bibcode=1991Natur.349..645J |issn=1476-4687}}{{Efn|Jayaraman mistook Geological Survey of India for Geological Society of India.}} The Indian National Science Academy also conducted an independent investigation but failed to come up with coherent findings.{{cite journal |date=1990-02-01 |title=Scandal upon scandal |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/343396a0 |journal=Nature |volume=343 |issue=6257 |pages=396 |doi=10.1038/343396a0 |bibcode=1990Natur.343..396. |issn=1476-4687}}{{cite journal|date=1990-03-01|title=Gupta takes to the hills|url=https://www.nature.com/articles/344187a0 |journal=Nature |volume=344 |issue=6263 |pages=187 |doi=10.1038/344187a0 |bibcode=1990Natur.344..187. |issn=1476-4687}}

The Geological Society of India, which claimed that it normally avoided controversial matters for publications in its Journal of the Geological Society of India, fearing that "the accusations [against Gupta] could be construed as quiescence", was obliged to publish two articles from Talent further damning Gupta's research malpractices. In the first paper published in June 1989, Talent's team gave an elaboration of instances of plagiarism in Gupta's reports.{{cite journal |last1=Talent |first1=John A. |last2=Brock |first2=Glenn A. |last3=Engelbretsen |first3=Michael J. |last4=Gaetani |first4=Maurizio |last5=Jell |first5=Peter A. |last6=Mawson |first6=Ruth |last7=Talent |first7=Ross C. |last8=Webster |first8=Gary D. |date=1990-06-01 |title=Himalayan Palaeontologie Database Polluted: Plagiarism and Other Anomalies |journal=Journal of the Geological Society of India |volume=35 |issue=6 |pages=569–585 |doi=10.17491/jgsi/1990/350603 |bibcode=1990JGSI...35..569T |issn=0974-6889}} The other, published in December 1989, presented further cases of fossil recycling and mismatching of the fossil sources.{{cite journal |last1=Talent |first1=John A. |last2=Brock |first2=Glenn A. |last3=Engelbretsen |first3=Michael J. |last4=Kato |first4=Makato |last5=Morante |first5=Richard |last6=Talent |first6=Ross C. |date=1989-12-01 |title=Himalayan Palaeontologic Database Polluted by Recycling and Other Anomalies |journal=Journal of the Geological Society of India |volume=34 |issue=6 |pages=575–586 |doi=10.17491/jgsi/1989/340603 |bibcode=1989JGSI...34..575T |issn=0974-6889}}

As Ian Anderson reported in New Scientist, the Geological Society of India made a "controversial move" by issuing an expression of concern, stating that "the fossil finds of V. J. Gupta are not reliable", although they did not formally retract any of Gupta's papers.{{cite web |last=Anderson |first=Ian |date=1991-02-01 |title=Himalayan scandal rocks Indian science |url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12917551-600-himalayan-scandal-rocks-indian-science/ |access-date=2023-12-30 |website=New Scientist}} The society reassessed Gupta's papers and found "several discrepancies lending support to the accusations levelled against V. J. Gupta" in 19 publications. The society's scientists visited seven localities in the Himalayas from where Gupta claimed to have collected Devonian fossils, but found no such evidence, declaring "the falsification of facts attempted by Gupta."{{cite journal |last=Srikantia |first=S. V. |date=1996 |title=The Himalayan fossil fraud and its aftermath |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24097333 |journal=Current Science |volume=70 |issue=3 |pages=198 |jstor=24097333 |issn=0011-3891}} They requested Gupta for access to his specimen collections, research notes and laboratory register for verification, but never received any response.{{cite journal |date=1991 |title=Gupta's fossils may be Himalayan fakes, says GSI |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24093206 |journal=Current Science |volume=60 |issue=3 |pages=138 |jstor=24093206 |issn=0011-3891}} The report titled "The Himalayan Fossil Controversy" was issued on 1 January 1991, condemning Gupta's research as "fictitious and based on spurious fossils" and "incomplete bordering on disinformation". It ran the pronouncements:{{cite journal |last= |date=1991-01-01 |title=The Himalayan Fossil Controversy |url=https://www.geosocindia.org/index.php/jgsi/article/view/67018/52540 |journal=Journal of the Geological Society of India |volume=37 |issue=1 |pages=80–88 |issn=0974-6889}}

• The most glaring deficiency noticed in nearly all the papers is the absence of precise locality information. Subsequent field checks by officers of the Geological Survey of India and some of Gupta's own colleagues have failed to reveal not only the fossils, but also rock formations stated to have been present in the area... He [Gupta] has failed to produce the originals of the recycled fossils with their registration number, date of collection, field description as entered in Field Note Books and Laboratory Registers and such other evidences which could confirm the genuineness of his fossil collections.
• It is obvious from the volume of evidence that has now been collected that the fossil finds of V. J. Gupta. are not reliable, that there are internal inconsistencies, that the data is incomplete bordering on disinformation.
• The Society has no other alternative but to publish the evaluation report with the recommendation that the incomplete and doubtful fossil records as published in the Journal and listed in the enclosed report be ignored till such time that independent proof is forthcoming of the in situ existence of the fossils [emphasis in original].

The Panjab University Vice Chancellor Ram Prakash Bambah issued Gupta's suspension order in February 1991. As Triloki Nath Kapoor soon replaced Bambah, Gupta was reinstated in January 1992.{{Cite journal |last=Maddox |first=John |date=1992-02-01 |title=Back from the dead |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/355578c0 |journal=Nature |volume=355 |issue=6361 |pages=578 |doi=10.1038/355578c0 |bibcode=1992Natur.355R.578M |issn=1476-4687}} That year, the University Grants Commission of India stopped its funding to Gupta,{{Cite journal |last=Jayaraman |first=K. S. |date=1994 |title=Fossil inquiry finds Indian geologist guilty of plagiarism |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/369698b0 |journal=Nature |volume=369 |issue=6483 |pages=698 |doi=10.1038/369698b0 |bibcode=1994Natur.369..698J |issn=0028-0836}} and Nature reported a note of disappointment over Gupta's reinstallation, calling it an "Indian rope trick".{{Cite journal |date=1994 |title=Another rope trick |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/371726a0 |journal=Nature |volume=371 |issue=6500 |pages=726 |doi=10.1038/371726a0 |bibcode=1994Natur.371..726. |issn=1476-4687}} The resurgent controversy compelled Kapoor for a proper action. The affair was investigated in an official inquiry led by Man Mohan Singh Gujral, the retired Chief Justice of the Sikkim High Court.{{Cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VgR0AwAAQBAJ&dq=Vishwa+Jit+gupta&pg=PA74 |title=Geoethics: Ethical Challenges and Case Studies in Earth Sciences |last=Mayer |first=Tony |date=2014-11-13 |publisher=Elsevier |isbn=978-0-12-800076-2 |editor-last=Wyss |editor-first=Max |location=Amsterdam, The Netherlands |pages=74–75 |chapter=Scientific integrity: The bedrock of the geosciences |editor-last2=Peppoloni |editor-first2=Silvia}} The inquiry started in February 1992 and lasted two years with the final report submitted in April 1994. Gupta could not make any evidential rebuttal, resorting to lame pretexts such as claiming that he did not have a good memory of his field research and never kept field notes. The verdict found Gupta guilty of all charges including data recycling, plagiarism, concocting research locations and conning other scientists.{{Cite journal |last=Talent |first=John |date=1994 |title=Vishwa Jit Gupta's Fraudulent Enterprise: Unanticipated Finale talent 1994 |url=http://unica2.unica.it/sds/images/SDS%20Newsletter%2011%20red.pdf |journal=I.U.G.S. Subcommission on Devonian Stratigraphy Newsletter |volume=11 |page=68}} Panjab University imposed three penalties on Gupta: (1) he was officially reprimanded; (2) he was debarred from administrative positions, his becoming a dean which was due that year was stayed; and (3) his annual increments of salary were ceased. In 1993, the UGC had rescinded Gupta's department from the status of the Centre of Advanced Study in Palaeontology and Himalayan Geology.{{cite journal |date=1993-12-16 |title=Palaeontology under a Himalayan shadow |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/366616a0 |journal=Nature |volume=366 |issue=6456 |pages=616 |doi=10.1038/366616a0 |bibcode=1993Natur.366..616. |issn=1476-4687}}

Gupta's dismissal from the Punjab University was discussed by the Syndicate meeting on 30 June 1994, but no decision was made and the case was deferred to the Senate. The Senate meeting on 24 September made a majority decision, 50 out of 55, that Gupta was not to be discharged; only five were in favour of a dismissal. Gupta was however restricted from teaching palaeontology,{{cite book |last=Mayer |first=Tony |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VgR0AwAAQBAJ&dq=Vishwa+Jit+gupta&pg=PA74 |title=Geoethics: Ethical Challenges and Case Studies in Earth Sciences |date=2014-11-13 |publisher=Elsevier |isbn=978-0-12-800076-2 |editor-last=Wyss |editor-first=Max |location=Amsterdam, The Netherlands |pages=74–75 |chapter=Scientific integrity: The bedrock of the geosciences |editor-last2=Peppoloni |editor-first2=Silvia}} and was assigned a course in environmental and ground water geology. He was allowed to continue supervising research students. Pressured by the academic community and public outcries, the university once again brought back Gupta's expulsion case in 1996. When Gupta knew his case was coming up in a special meeting of the Senate to be held on 17 March, he submitted a letter of resignation for voluntary retirement on 1 March. He requested cancellation of the Senate meeting. However, Kocheril Raman Narayanan, then Vice President of India and Chancellor of the university, pushed on for the Senate meeting to uphold the integrity of the university. Learning of this insistence, Gupta submitted application for reversal of his resignation three days before the meeting and went to the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking protection from the outcomes of the Senate meeting. The court made a notification to the university not to exercise further retribution on Gupta. Having no other option, the Senate decided to accept the resignation letter upon which Gupta took it to the court as he had already revoked that resignation. Gupta won the court case and continued his academic duties.{{Cite journal |last=Jayaraman |first=K. S. |date=1996-04-01 |title=Court allows fossil fraudster to return |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/380570b0 |journal=Nature |volume=380 |issue=6575 |pages=570 |doi=10.1038/380570b0 |bibcode=1996Natur.380..570J |issn=1476-4687}}

Gupta was still defiant about his research and called the whole ordeal a "conspiracy by foreigners."{{Cite journal |last=Jayaraman |first=K. S. |date=1994-09-01 |title=Gupta censured — but keeps his job |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/371368b0 |journal=Nature |volume=371 |issue=6496 |pages=368 |doi=10.1038/371368b0 |bibcode=1994Natur.371..368J |issn=1476-4687|url-access=subscription }} He wrote seven books on environmental geology.{{Cite web |url=https://www.exoticindiaart.com/book-author/vishwa%20jit%20gupta/ |title=Books authored by Vishwa Jit Gupta |website=www.exoticindiaart.com |access-date=2024-01-03}}{{Cite web |url=https://www.gettextbooks.com/author/Vishwa_Jit_Gupta |title=Books by Vishwa Jit Gupta |website=www.gettextbooks.com |access-date=2024-01-03}} Receiving a full pension benefit, he retired (some sources saying a premature superannuation) in 2002.{{Cite journal |last=Patnaik |first=Pratap R. |date=2016-08-01 |title=Scientific Misconduct in India: Causes and Perpetuation |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11948-015-9677-6 |journal=Science and Engineering Ethics |volume=22 |issue=4 |pages=1245–1249 |doi=10.1007/s11948-015-9677-6 |pmid=26197864 |issn=1471-5546|url-access=subscription }}{{efn|Sources, even from Talent, indicate the claimed retirement in 2004 may not be reliable, and obviously not an "early" retirement.}} Dhiraj Mohan Banerjee of the Geological Survey of India condemned the university's ineptness on Gupta' continued service and superannuation saying that it "reflects the utter poverty of the Indian ethics."{{Cite journal |last=Banerjee |first=D.M. |date=2013 |title=Himalayan Fossil Fraud- A view from the galleries By S.K. Shah |url=http://palaeontologicalsociety.in/vol58_14/11.pdf |journal=Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India |volume=58 |issue=2 |page=263}}

Gupta gave death threats to Talent. Talent sarcastically revealed in an ABC News interview when asked if he was a hero: "Oh, I don't know about a hero. There were no particularly dire consequences, just a few death threats. The people who were hurt most were in India." One day, a Panjab University technical assistant who had been involved in preparing fossil photographs for Gupta announced that he had evidence of the sources of fossil frauds and was planning to reveal them. He was killed in a hit-and-run accident the following night in front of his residence.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w35I2xvUQioC&dq=gupta+talent+himalaya&pg=PA321 |title=An Introduction to Forensic Geoscience |last=Bergslien |first=Elisa |date=2012-03-23 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-4443-9833-5 |page=321}} Gupta allegedly offered money to people to physically assault the co-authors of the Courier paper, Goel and Kumar. A few days later, the mother of one of them [not specified] was the victim of a hit-and-run accident, resulting in both legs and arms and several ribs broken.

Gupta's forgery has often been compared with the case of Piltdown Man, sometimes called the greatest hoax in science.{{cite web |date=2017-02-06 |title=The Piltdown Forgery, by J. S. Weiner |url=https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-piltdown-forgery-by-j.-s.-weiner |access-date=2024-01-03 |website=American Scientist}} Nature announced Talent's observations with a statement that it "will cast a longer shadow" than Piltdown Man because of its elaborate publications involving numerous discoveries through a quarter of a century, and multiple fossils and scientists. The Chicago Tribune described it as "the most serious case of its kind since the Piltdown hoax."{{cite web |date=1989-04-24 |title=Geologist denies allegations of 'Himalayan hoax' |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-04-24-8904060814-story.html |access-date=2024-01-05 |website=Chicago Tribune}} The New York Times wrote: "Unlike the case of Piltdown man, in which a single skull was passed off as a fossil of a prehistoric human, this one involves a much broader range of reported finds that have become a part of scientific literature." Talent described the meaning and consequences of Gupta's research as proving the kangaroos as natives to Kashmir or rhinoceros to Rio. Given the scale of fossils and the research publications, he described it as "[perhaps] the biggest paleontological fraud of all time." In 1994, Down to Earth reported it as the "greatest scientific fraud of the century". According to Tony Mayer of the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, the saga "is possibly one of the most extensive instances of malpractice in the whole scientific record."

Gupta never faced criminal or immoral charges from the university or government authorities. There was an alleged cover-up of the saga by the government. Pushpa Mittra Bhargava, founder-director of Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, explained the reason of his resignation from India's largest scientific establishments including Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Sciences, Indian Academy of Sciences, and Indian Social Science Academy, citing Gupta's case: "Charges of fraudulent claims laid by him [Gupta] on the discovery of Himalayan fossils have been proved, but the only punishment he has been awarded is the stoppage of some of his increments. What is worse is that the person who exposed him is now being harassed and victimised instead of being made a hero."{{cite web |date=1996-09-30 |title=Indian science is run by a mafia |url=https://www.downtoearth.org.in/interviews/indian-science-is-run-by-a-mafia-26728 |access-date=2023-12-30 |website=Down to Earth}}

Gujral's inquiry reported that none of Gupta's co-authors were associated with the misconduct. A colleague and co-author of Gupta, Ahluwalia who had openly supported Talent's allegations and blamed Gupta of misconduct into which he was linked, was reprimanded and punished by the Panjab University. The Geological Society of India's secretary Sampige Venkateshaiya Srikantia made a press statement criticising the Punjab University's decision in 1994 as "a mild censure which amounts to a blatant disregard of ethical values... [and] chosen to ignore all the scientific and legal opinions... [referring to Ahluwalia's case] no one with conscience will come forward to speak the truth and the scientific community will be anaesthetized." Nature commented on the failure of Panjab University on the case: "Chandigarh's indulgence of Gupta is a kind of rope trick in that it defies the admittedly unwritten laws that usually apply when people are accused of publishing fraudulent data."

File:Rafatazmia chitrakootensis (SRXTM renderings), Statherian (Vindhyan Supergroup) of Central-India.png

Gupta's case had lingering effects on Indian palaeontology and the controversy was blamed as the reason "paleontology lost prestige" in India{{Cite news |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/india-s-paleontologists-fight-destruction-its-fossil-riches |title=India's paleontologists fight destruction of its fossil riches |last=Kumar |first=Sanjay |date=2021-03-28 |work=Science |doi=10.1126/science.aat7646}} and that it caused "irreparable damage to Indian science."{{Cite journal |last=de Wit |first=Maarten J. |date=1994-03-03 |title=Censorship in geology? |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/368010c0 |journal=Nature |volume=368 |issue=6466 |pages=10 |doi=10.1038/368010c0 |issn=1476-4687}} Indian discoveries not only in geology but also in other science disciplines were viewed with suspicion. India was perceived as "a leading nation in fraudulent scientific research." An example of such prejudice was the discovery of one of the oldest multicellular eukaryotes.{{Cite web |url=https://thewire.in/science/red-algae-azmi-vindhya |title=1.6 Billion Year Old Algae Rejuvenate Indian Geologist's Once-Bunked Ideas |last=Kher |first=Suvrat |date=2017-03-19 |website=The Wire |access-date=2023-12-30}} The fossils were discovered from the Vindhyan Mountains in Central India by Rafat Jamal Azmi, of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in Dehradun, who reported in the Journal of the Geological Society of India in 1998.{{Cite web |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/earliest-animals-old-again |title=Earliest Animals Old Again? |last1=Kerr |first1=Richard A. |last2=Bagla |first2=Palla |date=1998-11-03 |website=Science |doi=10.1126/article.39784 |doi-broken-date=1 April 2025 |access-date=2023-12-30}} As Azmi announced the discovery in Science,{{Cite journal |last=Azmi |first=R. J. |date=1998-10-23 |title=Fossil Discoveries in India |url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.282.5389.627c |journal=Science |volume=282 |issue=5389 |pages=627 |doi=10.1126/science.282.5389.627c |issn=0036-8075 |s2cid=129925669|url-access=subscription }} it was immediately received with scepticism. When renowned palaeontologists including Nicholas Butterfield, Simon Conway Morris and Soren Jensen (all at the University of Cambridge) examined the samples, they concluded that they were not fossils at all but artefacts. At the behest of the Geological Society of India, a team of palaeontologists from the Geological Survey of India, Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology and Lucknow University, coordinated by Om Narain Bhargava, conducted an expedition in 1999 to verify the discovery.{{Cite journal |date=2000 |title=Vindhyan fossil controversy |url=https://www.indianjournalofentrepreneurship.com/index.php/jgsi/article/view/69610 |journal=Journal of the Geological Society of India |volume=55 |issue=6 |pages=675–680 |issn=0974-6889}} They found no evidence of Azmi's claims.{{Cite journal |last=Bagla |first=Pallava |date=2000-08-25 |title=Team Rejects Claim of Early Indian Fossils |url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.289.5483.1273a |journal=Science |volume=289 |issue=5483 |pages=1273 |doi=10.1126/science.289.5483.1273a |issn=0036-8075 |pmid=17772987|url-access=subscription }} In 2000, based on the report of the expeditionary team, the Journal of the Geological Society of India issued a concluding statement declaring "that the identification of fossils by R. J. Azmi is far from convincing and that more detailed work is necessary before the authenticity of the find is accepted."

The dispute became a persisting controversy until it was resolved in 2009 when Stefan Bengtson and his team at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm published the full analysis of the case in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.{{Cite journal |last1=Bengtson |first1=Stefan |last2=Belivanova |first2=Veneta |last3=Rasmussen |first3=Birger |last4=Whitehouse |first4=Martin |date=2009-05-12 |title=The controversial "Cambrian" fossils of the Vindhyan are real but more than a billion years older |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |volume=106 |issue=19 |pages=7729–7734 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0812460106 |issn=1091-6490 |pmc=2683128 |pmid=19416859 |doi-access=free|bibcode=2009PNAS..106.7729B }} Azmi's discovery became accepted as genuine.{{Cite journal |last1=Dalton |first1=Rex |last2=Jayaraman |first2=Killugudi |date=2009-04-22 |title=Indian fossil find resolves fraud accusations |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2009.383 |journal=Nature |doi=10.1038/news.2009.383 |issn=0028-0836|url-access=subscription }} In a further vindication published in PLoS Biology in 2017, Bengston's team established that the fossil was that of an alga, which they named Rafatazmia chitrakootensis (Figure 4) after the discoverer, and was estimated to be 1.6 billion years old,{{Cite journal |last1=Bengtson |first1=Stefan |last2=Sallstedt |first2=Therese |last3=Belivanova |first3=Veneta |last4=Whitehouse |first4=Martin |date=2017 |title=Three-dimensional preservation of cellular and subcellular structures suggests 1.6 billion-year-old crown-group red algae |journal=PLOS Biology |volume=15 |issue=3 |pages=e2000735 |doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.2000735 |issn=1545-7885 |pmc=5349422 |pmid=28291791 |doi-access=free}} becoming the oldest known alga.{{Cite journal |date=2017 |title=Oldest algal fossils found |journal=Nature |volume=543 |issue=7646 |pages=467 |doi=10.1038/543467d |issn=1476-4687 |pmid=28332521 |doi-access=free}}

In 1989, the US House of Representatives used the case as one of the evidences of scientific frauds in its first hearing on its policy on "Maintaining the Integrity of Scientific Research".{{cite book |last= |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NeWKHPBrrpIC&dq=himalaya+fraud+Gupta%C2%A0&pg=PA1113 |title=Maintaining the Integrity of Scientific Research: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, One Hundred First Congress, First Session, June 28, 1989 |date=1990 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |pages=1105–1114}}

In 1991, a 52-minute documentary of the hoax was presented by Robyn Williams in an ABC TV programme The Professor's New Clothes.{{cite web |title=The Professor's new clothes {{!}} Stephen Ramsey {{!}} 1991 {{!}} ACMI collection |url=https://www.acmi.net.au/works/82277--the-professors-new-clothes/ |access-date=2023-12-30 |website=www.acmi.net.au}}

In 2000, a 24-minute podcast documentary was broadcast on 31 March by BBC in its programme "Science Friction" with the headline "Tampering with the Fossil Record".{{cite web |date=2000-03-31 |title=BBC World Service - Science Friction, Tampering with the Fossil Record |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03kc791 |access-date=2024-01-05 |website=BBC-GB}}

In 2013, S.K. Shah of the Palaeontological Society of India published a book Himalayan Fossil Fraud: A View from the Galleries.{{cite journal |last=Bhargava |first=O. N. |date=2013-12-01 |title=Himalayan fossil fraud: A view from the galleries |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/s12594-013-0213-5 |journal=Journal of the Geological Society of India |volume=82 |issue=6 |pages=722–723 |doi=10.1007/s12594-013-0213-5 |bibcode=2013JGSI...82..722B |s2cid=128803057 |issn=0974-6889|url-access=subscription }}

In 2021, the University Grants Commission of India used the affair as a case study in its policy titled Academic Integrity and Research Quality.{{Cite book |url=https://www.ugc.gov.in/KeyInitiative?ID=ddmCMsxJZgXH2S/m0uMOKQ== |title=Academic Integrity and Research Quality |last1=Deka |first1=Ramesh Ch. |last2=Deka |first2=Ajanta |publisher=University Grants Commission |year=2021 |location=New Delhi (India) |page=97 |chapter=Sooner or Later Ethical Violations Get Exposed}}

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