[3] Once recognised as "India's most celebrated fossil scientist",[4] he has been named as "the greatest" and "most notorious paleontological fraudster"[5] and "Houdini of the Himalayas.
[12] In 1966, Panjab University awarded him a Ph.D. on the thesis Palaeontology, Stratigraphy and Structure of the Palaeozoic Rocks of the Area South-East of Srinagar.
[25] With Susan Turner of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, he reported in 1973 the discovery of the oldest (at the time) fish in India that belonged to Devonian.
[30] In 1994, the legal inquiry led M. S. Gujral, a retired judge of the Sikkim High Court, found him guilty of research misconducts, but the university Senate decided to allow him continuation of service.
[27] The discovery of the fraud began when Talent and John Pickett visited a road cut site in Nepal where Gupta had reported prolific numbers of Devonian conodont fossils.
A more detailed examination showed that Gupta had used illustrations of fossils that were similar to specimens collected near New York by George Jennings Hinde in 1879.
In an interview to ABC he went on record to note that a technician in Gupta's department who threatened to reveal details of the fraud was reportedly killed in hit-and-run accident.
The aged mother of one of the Indian co-authors of the report by Talent published by the Senckenberg Museum was hit and serious injured in a road accident.