'Tired of suffering for varsity's goof-ups'

u00a0In its report to the Mumbai University on April 1 the Board of Examination BOE had instructed the university officials to lodge a police complaint in connection with the March 2 leaking of the Marketing and Human Resource Management paper for Third Year TY BCom students under the Prevention of Malpractices Itrsquos been four days since the diktat was issued but university officials have not yet filed a complaint the police on the incident that caused a furore last monthu00a0 TESTING TIME 50odd TY BCom students gathered outside the court premises yesterday waiting to hear its verdict They plan to stage a protest again today at Azad Maidan and meet the universityrsquos VCu00a0 u00a0 From the looks of it it is yet again the students who will have to bear the brunt of the varistyrsquos goofup ndash the High Court yesterday quashed a petition filed by two TY BCom students against the universityrsquos decision to reconduct the MHRM examination on April 11 The courtrsquos ruling in favour of the university and the reexamination caused uproar among students yesterday as many of the students have left for holidays or joined work and will have to make major changes to their plans if they are to appear for the rescheduled examu00a0 While many students hovered anxiously outside the court premises a student union met with the vice chancellor but failed to convince him to cancel the exam in the wake of the courtrsquos verdict An official from the University of Mumbai on condition of anonymity said ldquoThe process of registering a police complaint and another with the cyber crime department will take time but it is underway The University has spoken to Joint Commissioner of Police crime Himanshu Roy and they have started investigating the matter The University of Mumbai has been given two weeks to reply to the petition filed by the students of TY BCom Today representatives of the National Studentsrsquo Union of India NSUI met the vice chancellor VC on behalf of those students who are protesting the reexam They presented their demands The VC has not given any assurance to them but only heard their pleardquo Suraj Singh Thakur NSUI state president said ldquoWe demanded that no question be asked from outside the scope of the syllabus The colleges should send notification to all those students who have already left for their vacations reminding them that their reexam is scheduled for April 11 It was also demanded that the marking be lenient Our primary aim was to cancel the reexam but when the High Court quashed the demand we had to accept the decisionrdquo Petitioners speak Jayprakash Aggarwal 26 one of the two petitioners said ldquoWe donrsquot mind writing the examination again but how long will the Mumbai University get away with its blunders Through this petition we wanted to raise a strong voice against the varsity We accept the courtrsquos decision mdash we may have lost the battle but we will win the warrdquo The other petitioner Chetankumar Sharma 22 rued ldquoWe listed a number of reasons why the examination shouldnrsquot be rescheduled However the High Court did not consider our problems and ruled in the universityrsquos favourrdquo Advocate for the petitioners Uday Varumjikar said ldquoThe honourable bench of the High Court has asked the university to file a reply to the charges made in the petition in two weeks The persons charged will be punished only after the response is filedrdquo Students upset The High Courtrsquos verdict in favour of the reexam infuriated the 50odd TY BCom students who had gathered outside the court premises yesterdayu00a0 Aditya Pawar one of the affected students said ldquoWe donrsquot want a reexamination so we protested We will meet the vicechancellor tomorrow and request him to cancel itrdquo The students have resolved to congregate at Azad Maidan today and thereafter visit the VC to protest the reexam Dhaval Vora another student said ldquoWe didnrsquot know that the NSUI had gone on our behalf and had agreed to the reexam We would have never come to protest if we had agreed for the reexamrdquo Officialspeak Dr SM Suryawanshi controller of examinations Mumbai University said ldquoWe will be taking preventive measures to ensure that such a blunder does not occur in the future We will be holding a meeting to discuss the measures soonrdquou00a0 The blunder On March 27 invigilators had accidentally provided 40 students with the MHRM paper instead of handing out the paper for the scheduled Business Economics exam The MHRM exam was scheduled to be held the following day on March 28 As a result of the blunder an SMS was circulated containing questions that would appear in the MHRM paper the next day After its initial denial Mumbai University conducted an enquiry into the matter and admitted to the mistake It was then decided that the MHRM examination would be reconducted on April 11u00a0 Voices Rohan Ranavade 20 Lala Lajpat Rai College We have no choice but to sit with our books again Why should 85000 students suffer because of 40odd students It is not our fault that the paper was leakedu00a0 u00a0 Bilal Shaikh 20 SIWS College We received the examination timetable in October Thus many of us had made vacation plans for after the exams Some of us have jobs while others are getting married We are tired of suffering because of Mumbai Universityrsquos goofupsu00a0 u00a0 Shivam Patil 21 HR College Personally I donrsquot really mind giving the examination again since the subject is easy We were contesting the matter on principle Students should have a voice This was a message to the university to get its act togetheru00a0