Over 200 students stage protest at ICAI, claim papers not evaluated properly

Over 200 students of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) staged a protest outside its central Delhi office on Monday, claiming their answer sheets were not evaluated properly and demanded a recheck. The students demonstrated outside the ICAI office in ITO here, alleging that paper evaluators have deducted marks for no reason and even correct answers were marked as wrong.

ICAI conducts examinations twice a year – May and November. Results for the test held in May were announced in August, after which many of the students got their answer sheets through RTI enquiries. Chartered accountant Neeraj Arora, who is also a member of ICAI, said the students compared the answers they had written to the ones released by the institute as model answer keys and 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. The students want their answer sheets to be reevaluated and demanded for a more robust system of checking, Arora added.

No immediate reaction was available from the ICAI. However, the institute had posted a clarification on the evaluation system on September 21 which said, "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 in social media."

The institute had posted about the reforms they have put in place. All papers of Intermediate and Foundation level exams in November 2019/May 2020 will be put through the digital evaluation mode which will help in doing away with stages of physical handling of answer books, avoiding variations in marks awarded by examiners, eliminating scope of any totalling errors, the institute's website read.

Central evaluation is being carried out in several papers of CA exams from November 2018, wherein examiners evaluate answer books under the supervision of head examiners/associate head examiners. From the May 2019 tests, objective type questions for 30 marks were introduced in select papers of intermediate and final exams.

"Further, the institute has decided to introduce OMR-based evaluation for MCQs of Elective Papers 6A to 6F of final New course with effect from November 2019 which are machine processed, thus avoiding subjectivity," the website stated.

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