Thousands of CA Students from Across India have now come forward on the 2nd consecutive day to protest in front of the respective city branches of Indian Institute of Chartered Accountancy (ICAI). The protest started on 23rd September 2019 where the students claimed that the answer sheets of the students are not checked properly and that the students demand a proper rechecking.

On 23rd September 2019, over 200 students staged a protest outside ICAI’s central Delhi office. On 24th September, the students from across India staged protests in front of respective city branches. 

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The students started the protest alleging that paper evaluators have deducted marks for no reason and even correct answers were marked as wrong. The students partaking protest are CA aspirants who appeared in CA Final & IPCC examinations held in June 2019. Although, the exams are held semi-annually in May & November every year. However, due to elections being held in May, the exams were deferred by a month.

After the results of the same were announced in August 2019, the students who earned lesser marks than expected requested for their answer sheet copies through the official procedure of RTI enquiry. Many students were surprised that even after their answer being correct; the marks were not allotted to the students accordingly. 

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As told by CA Neeraj Arora who is a member Chartered Accountant, the students compared their answers with the model answers released by the institute, they found many discrepancies in evaluation.

“They found that many of their correct answers had been marked as wrong and this way, many students even flunked the papers. In some cases, even 12 marks have been deducted,” he said while addressing the media.

The students demand a re-evaluation of their answer sheets and along with a more robust system of checking. However, there were no immediate responses from ICAI. 

The Proof that student’s protest is not wrong

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One of the most renowned faculties of CA Field, CA Praveen Sharma also came forward to partake in the protest with students.

https://twitter.com/Shubham29853785/status/1176349574320967680
https://twitter.com/DeepakR52170860/status/1176428247711535104

In a similar event, students of Indore City came forward to join the Protest at ICAI, Indore Branch where the renowned faculty CA Praveen Khatod also came forward to join hands with students in the protest.

Not only Indore & Delhi but Hyderabad:

https://twitter.com/canacofficial/status/1176393100354191361

and Udaipur:

https://twitter.com/prasham2/status/1176388202661404672

The students cant stop their agitation:

https://twitter.com/iamthinking123/status/1176369832729677824
https://twitter.com/caanshutiwari/status/1176182905183227904
https://twitter.com/suri4k/status/1175993212646899712
https://twitter.com/caanshutiwari/status/1176182905183227904
https://twitter.com/akshaygandhi27/status/1176006526114263040
https://twitter.com/Geetaku73132843/status/1176059773126467586

Although, Insitute had posted a clarification in the evaluation system on September 21 stating, “It has been brought to our notice that certain adverse reports relating to the system of evaluation of answer books of CA exams are doing the rounds on social media.”

Apart from this, the institute has assured about the new reforms. The claimed to put all papers of Intermediate and Foundation level exams to be held in November 2019/May 2020 will be put through the digital evaluation mode. As explained from the institute’s website, the process will help in eliminating stages of physical handling of answer books. Further, it will mitigate the chances of variations in marks awarded by examiners, thus eradicating the scope of any totalling errors. 

Apart from this, the institute also changed the final exams pattern by introducing 30 marks worth of MCQs (Multiple Choice Questions) in 4 papers of CA Final. The institute is looking forward to conducting OMR (Optical Mark Recognition) sheet based assessment for those 30 marks worth of questions to avoid any human error in valuation.

 Information Source: News18.com