Scientists such as Rahul Siddharthan (Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai), Y.B. Srinivas (Institute of Wood Science and Technology), and D.P. Sengupta (former professor at IISC), agreed that the plagiarised portion has no bearing on the findings, yet Siddharthan opined that the reactions made by Rao and Krupanidhi were overboard. Rao and Krupanidhi publicly blamed Chitara, and denied the publication as not a plagiarism. Rao had commented, "This should not be really considered as plagiarism, but an instance of copying of a few sentences in the text." He even extended the blame to Krupanidhi asserting that he had no role in it as it was written by Krupanidhi without his knowledge. His claims were not justified by the fact that he was the senior scientist and corresponding author in that publication.