The decision of the University of Mumbai to re-conduct the Marketing and Human Resource Management (MHRM) examination, the paper for which was mistakenly leaked last week, has not gone down well with the students. They will now have to reappear for it on April 11. Students held protests in various parts of the city on Wednesday against the re-exam but the University has said that it will go ahead with the scheduled exam. The students suffered a second blow as the Bombay high court also dismissed a petition against the re-exam on the grounds that it was not possible to ascertain the extent to which the questions of the leaked paper had been circulated, and hence all the students would have to reappear.
Last week, some questions of the TYBCom MHRM paper were leaked at BNN College in Bhiwandi after the papers were opened a day before the scheduled exam. By the time the MU sorted out the gaffe, the questions had been passed out all over the city through cellphone messages amongst students.
“We did not get any message, nor did we know about the questions when we appeared for the MHRM paper, so why should we be forced to re appear for the exam?” said Rohit Gupta, a student of Lala College. Around 2,500 students from various city colleges divided themselves into groups of hundreds and protested at the University’s Kalina campus, Fort campus and Azad Maidan. However, as the protests were held without proper permissions, some students were herded away by the police from the Fort campus. Even at the Kalina campus, the security did not allow the students to stage their protest for long.
Meanwhile, the University concurred with the HC stand and maintained that the re-exam would go ahead as per schedule and there would be no change in the agenda.