Mumbai varsity seeks more time to declare results

MUMBAI: Mumbai

University

said it wanted more time to declare

results

for BCom and some other undergraduate courses for 2016-17 and

Bombay high court

extended the CET cell deadline for filling admission forms online till September 6 midnight.

The university said BSc and BA results have been declared to indicate if students passed or failed. Its counsel, Rui Rodrigues, made a statement which the court recorded, that the university would publish a result gazette online within three days to display marks and that individual marksheets will be given within five days.

Rodrigues also said the university website had trouble displaying results and blamed the weather. The results declared would be displayed through another server, he said. Giving a status update he said, “All results had been declared by the law faculty, and there are two pending out of 153 in arts and 47 in science. Of 50 exams in commerce, 20 results are pending, while management had four out of 36 and technology had published 170 out of 176.” A notice by university director of examination and evaluation was submitted in court, which pointed out difficulties they faced. “Teachers did come, but not the expected number, due to Ganpati,” continued Rodrigues. “We have technical issues with the internet service and electricity supply,” he said.

A bench of Justices Anoop Mohta and Bharati Dangre was hearing a bunch of matters by students seeking declaration of results at the earliest, as it was affecting their admissions for the three-year law course.

The bench voiced concern on the large proportion of commerce results which have not been declared, asking for a rough estimate by when they could be expected, which the university could not give, as the results not only included regular students but also those from IDOL.

The bench said there should be coordination between CET cell and university and wanted to know what the university intends to do next year to ensure no such delay.

State CET

cell counsel P N Patwardhan had first said the deadline had been extended to September 5, but since it was a holiday, the HC directed it should be extended to September 6, when it will next hear the matter and pass orders.

The bench “extended by 24 hours” to avoid “any intermittent vacuum”. “Students should not suffer. They are at no fault whatsoever,” stated the HC.

Sadyumna Nargolkar, a petitioner who had appeared for BCom and secured “good marks’’ in state CET for law entrance, wanted the results of his qualifying exams—BCom—to ensure he doesn’t lose out on admission to a good law colleges as time was running out. His counsel, Mukesh Vashi, said marksheets should be given soon to enable students to fill forms, else merely declaring a ‘pass/fail’’ result was meaningless. Online procedures required qualifying examination results to be filled in Part 2 of the form, and on failure to do so, applicants would be chosen for leftover colleges in Round 3.

When asked by the bench how Part 2 of the form will be filled, Rodrigues and the CET advocate said the gazette will carry adequate information.

At an earlier hearing, Rodrigues had said, “The online assessment is the best possible assessment that can be followed to cut down errors.” Mihir Desai, counsel for Bombay University College Teachers’ Union, an association of teachers, said the university must cut down delays and can do so if internet speed and computers are increased and provided at one centre at Kalina, as teachers were being made to go to various colleges and use their laboratories, which was affecting teaching time. A complaint was also that many graduates planning to go abroad for higher studies may have lost out this year as they were unable to meet application deadlines due to delay in assessment.

There is a shortage of computers, said the petition seeking directions to the university, to make available 2,000 for assessment of answer papers for the next semester.

Another petition, filed by final year law college students Sachin Pawar, Abhishek Bhat and Ravishekhar Pandey, demanded that results be declared within three days or they should be compensated Rs 10 lakh. The trio claimed that due to the delay in announcement of results, their careers were at stake as they were unable to apply for post-graduate courses or even jobs.

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