I have been sanctioned by my country's Higher Education Commission after being accused of plagiarism. What can I do? I am a professor in a public university and have been accused of plagiarism by an anonymous letter to the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan.

The anonymous letter framed two charges:


It accused four scientists of submitting a plagiarized manuscript in Laser Surgery and Medicine, a prestigious US journal. As a proof the accuser attached an email of rejection on the basis of high similarity index from the editor of the journal addressed to the corresponding author. I have been listed as a co-author, whereas the email of rejection is addressed to seven email addresses.
In second allegation a reference of 2005 of the editor of a Pakistani journal is mentioned. The editor accused the corresponding author of submitting an article which was already published in a journal, i.e. attempted self-plagiarism. The manuscript was not published but the editor declared that the corresponding author and his co-authors were blacklisted from the journal without mentioning the names of co-authors. Unfortunately the corresponding author in both cases is the same person and the co-authors in both cases are unclear.    


My name is listed as a co-author by the anonymous letter and I was completely unaware of both the incidents. But HEC has black-listed all four people accused, including me, for two-years. 

What can I do?
Your question is weirdly vague on one important question, namely whether you actually are/were a co-author of the two questionable submissions. I am not sure how one can be "alleged" as a co-author - isn't that entirely clear and a completely black-white, yes-no question? Is your name on these papers?

Even if the HEC does not publish the name of the co-authors, you should still know whether you actually were a co-author of this publications or not.

The question "what can I do?" very much depends on your answer to this.

If yes:

You have presumably been sanctioned correctly. Trying to weasel out of your penalties based on formalities will likely only reflect worse on you. Accept the 2-year blacklisting and move on.

If no:

This then should be a clear-cut case of misjudgement, and following the formal appeal procedure whatever it is should definitely work out in favour of you. Your university should support you in this if the case is actually "I was blacklisted for a paper submission that has nothing to do with me".