It has been nearly three months since the LLB Semester V exams for the three-year course conducted by Mumbai University (MU) concluded. Yet, students continue to wait for results. According to insiders, the university is supposed to release mark sheets within 30 days from the end date of exams. It may take an extra 15 days. However, the students’ union claims that not just LLB, but LLM students’ first-year results are pending too. Faculty and principals of law colleges blamed technical glitches in the On-Screen Marking (OSM) system and non-payment of paper correction charges by the university.

A law faculty member said, “Technical glitches while using the OSM is one of the reasons for delay. Secondly, most law colleges do not have full-time faculty who are NET/SET qualified PhD-holders as per the UGC (University Grants Commission) mandate. Visiting faculty with a Master’s degree, who are either practising lawyers or teachers, are hired instead. They are paid between Rs 300 and Rs 600 per lecture. Most of them do not want to correct papers on the OSM system as it’s time-consuming and the university does not pay the fees on time.”

Another law faculty said, “Only two to three computers are connected to the university server, and college access is mandated to only one or two senior-most trusted faculty. Often, the online bucket on the OSM platform remains empty. Faculty have to wait until the answer sheets are dumped into the bucket for assessment by the university server. At times, the back office at the university remains unresponsive to calls and emails.”

Also Read: Exams hit by staff stir across Maharashtra universities

Arrears for a year

The university pays approximately Rs 16 for every paper corrected but faculty claim that payments from a year before are pending. “We are expected to correct over 100 answer sheets for Rs 16 per paper. To earn a few thousand rupees extra, we have to devote around 10 minutes per paper on the OSM. It takes time as we have to drag a ‘Seen’ tag on each and every page. I resubmitted my details to the university two days ago, but the money wasn’t transferred,” said a full-time faculty at a law college.

She added, “The physical checking of answer sheets was better than OSM, which is tiring and time-consuming. We have to miss summer vacations due to practical and written papers which get stretched beyond the academic calendar.”

Varsity meets colleges

Irked by faculty not checking answer sheets, MU recently held a webinar for all law college faculty and had a meeting with principals in Kalina campus. Highly-placed sources who attended the meeting said MU officials expressed dismay over the delay and warned of disciplinary action against the faculty under the Maharashtra Public University Act.

U K Nambiar, principal, MCT Law College, Airoli, Navi Mumbai, confirmed the meeting and said, “Around 10,000 answer sheets have to be checked. There are around 70 law colleges in Mumbai, MMR and Konkan region affiliated to the MU. It is a fact that faculty face technical glitches in OSM. MU should change the platform or create a more user-friendly application.”

“Only a few papers are left for correction and most of the papers for both LLB (Semester V) and LLM (Semester I) are checked. As per a university notification, we allowed provisional admission for students of LLM first year to go into the second year,” said Nambiar.

Students’ union speaks

Siddharth Ingle, founder president of Maharashtra Students Union (MASU), said, “It is only in the last five years that the law results of MU have been getting delayed thanks to the OSM system introduced in 2017 and outsourced. The backend office has to scan thousands of pages of answer sheets and then transmit them online to law colleges for correction.”

Speaking of a possible solution, Ingle said, “The MU should activate their Central Assessment System (CAS) which is only on paper today. It should take over the assessment of examination papers through a centrally appointed committee to ensure timely correction as per the provisions of Section 89 (declaration of results within 30 days) of the Act.”

What varsity says

Dr Prasad Karande, in-charge director, Board of Examination and Evaluation at MU, said, “The paper checking is almost done. We will likely announce the fifth semester results in the coming week. The LLM first-year exams concluded in late January. Their results will be out in the next two weeks.”

Dr Karande added, “Manual paper correction has its own pros and cons. The digitisation of paper checking has helped us seal grey areas. Moreover, we have to move ahead digitally. The OSM is user-friendly, and glitches are usually temporary. With regard to payments, all are done after verifying the faculty’s details with our records. Hence, it takes time when the data mismatch.”

A senior university official said, “Of the 6 lakh students affiliated to MU, around 10,000 may be pursuing law. We have observed over time that only law students face issues, which also get media attention. Isn’t it surprising that the remaining students and faculty are using similar platforms but don’t face hiccups?”

“It is good to be vocal about issues, but it should not be used as a tool to blame and shame the university for no reason, at least by the college faculty and principals,” the official added.

Asked for his comment on the official’s view, a law college principal from Navi Mumbai used a legal maxim, ‘Rex Non Potest Peccare’, which means the ‘king can do wrong’. “This is a myth that the university, unfortunately, believes in,” he said.

Rs 16
Fee paid to faculty for every paper corrected

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