Hindustan Times: Mumbai: Tuesday,
November 08, 2016.
Professors
who make mistakes while checking university answer sheets cannot be punished
for their carelessness. The revelation was made in a reply to a query field by
a city-based activist under the Right To Information (RTI) Act.
Vihar Durve
sought the above information from the University of Mumbai on the number of
students who failed an examination due to the errors made by the examiner or
moderator and the number of staffers who were punished for committing such
errors. The reply, which that took several months, stated there was no
provision under the State Universities Act to take action against professors who
made mistakes while correcting answer sheets.
“I was
surprised to find out that not only does the university is clueless about the
number of students who have been failed due to an error on the part of the
examiner/moderator, but there’s no provision to take action against such
professors either. Basically students are the only ones who suffer,” said
Durve, adding that he had filed the RTI earlier this year and after receiving
no response from the public information officer of MU, he forwarded his request
to the first and second appellate authority.
The response
from MU stated: “The answer books used during examination have barcodes owing
to which the identity of student/s is not revealed to the examiner/s, thereby
ensuring objective of secrecy. The examiner/s cannot fail the student/s
intentionally/unintentionally. Hence it cannot be said that the examiner/s have
“wrongly declared students failed”.
The reply
further states that the only disciplinary action that can be initiated is as
per section32 (5) (g) of the Maharashtra Universities Act, 1994, where it is
mandatory on every examiner to attend the duty of examinations failing which
disciplinary action can be initiated.
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