CA Lalit Munoyat
Students appearing for IPCC paper 5-Auditing & Assurance-on 13th May 2013 , were shocked to know , after coming out of the exam centre, that the exam for SM/IT paper -7 due to be held on 15th May 2013 has been postponed to 24th May 2013 due to unavoidable circumstances. For confirmation of this shocking news I crossed checked it with the news posted on the Official website of ICAI. Fearing further that the site may have been perhaps compromised by hackers, I confirmed the same from members of the Central Council of ICAI and the news was authentically confirmed. Despite all hypothetical imagination, I could not figure out the unavoidable circumstances. On 14th May 2013 The news was reported in the Times of India as under:
The Information Technology and Strategic Management paper, which was to be held on Wednesday, has been rescheduled for May 24 as one exam centre at Mittal College, Malad, inadvertently gave it out to candidates on Monday instead of the Auditing and Assurance paper.
It was shocking to know that
“Wrong question paper was given out in one exam centre at Mittal College, Malad , Mumbai.”
May be there was a faux pas,or question paper goof-up bug
Even more shocking was the news that the faux pas was due to the fact that while taking the delivery of the Exam question papers from the vault of Bank of Baroda the supervisor of the centre Mr. Narendra Singhi said “Instead of giving the PSK bundle, I was given the SMA bundle. But I did not check it,” Singhi told ICAI officials. At 1.30pm, the bundles were opened and the question books were given to candidates. “After about ten minutes, the college authorities took the question papers back as we informed them that the wrong paper had been
distributed,” said a student.
Well it appears to be a human error. But when one probes deep in to the human error some questions needs to be answered:
1) Is it possible for the supervisor Mr. Narendra Singhi, holding a responsible position of an Associate Professor to make such a silly mistake of not doing even the least expected of him i.e. He did not check the bundle whether it was PSK bundle or SMA bundle and merely put the bundle in his bag and left for college?
2) Is it possible that the CA Observer Mr. Amit Chedda who also visited the bank alongwith the Supervisor also did the same thing of not checking the bundle ?
3) Is it possible that at the exam centre where a coordinator is normally present also did not check the bundle before opening of the bundle.
4) Were the supervisor and the CA Observer checked the past 4 papers or were they just riding their luck that correct papers were collected and distributed ? Appears a remote possibility.
5) Then what could have been the reason ? Well, from the reported news it appears that the papers were perhaps used to be collected by a junior staff of the centre and brought to the Centre where they were checked before distribution.
6) Perhaps , on 13th May when the papers were brought to the centre the Supervisor and the CA observer both were not present at the appointed time and the bundle was opened by some unauthorized person who did not know the code of the paper and just distributed whatever was collected by him from the bank.
7) The ICAI did its best to control the damage. “We have now pushed Wednesday’s exam to a new date across India. It cannot be held on Wednesday as some aspirants managed to see the question paper in one exam centre on Monday,” said ICAI president Subodh Kumar Agrawal.
8) Is Pushing the exam to a new date across India a solution better than the problem itself ?. While postponing the exams by 9 days did the ICAI not appreciate the imminent problems the students across the nation were to face? Many students including outsiders have made their travel plan considering the 15th May as the last day of the exam. How would the students who came from outside the city deal with such problem ? Either they have to put stay in Mumbai for 9 more days at exorbitant cost of living in Mumbai or they have to go back and return on 24th May 2013 to appear for the paper. Given the holiday rush for the month of vacation, it would be a hurricane job for the students to arrange their reserved travelling.
9) Many students and their parents might have made their holiday plans and booked cheap air ticket well in advance. What would become of their plan and the non returnable fare?
10) At last, I wonder why the exams were put off by so many days ? From the best of my knowledge I can state that more than 2 set of the questions papers are kept ready for the exams so that in case of emergency, a different paper can be distributed. If that were to be the case, then the leaked paper set may have been discarded and any one of the remaining set could have been used to conduct the exam particularly when the entire infrastructure for conducting the exams were in place. The President ICAI is requested to take note of such contingencies and put in place the right machinery so as to maintain the schedule of the exams.
11) Because of the last many unfortunate events, the credibility of the ICAI has already stooped down to a new low and the fresh CAs are not getting placement worth their qualification. The course of ICAI is being regarded as a refined and polished course of Commerce Graduation (i.e. B.Com.) and with such incidents happening , the credibility of the institute is definitely not going to achieve the status symbol that it used to carry some 15 years back.
12) Urgent remedial measures is the need of the hour and the liability of such a goof up must be pinned to the erring persons and take an exemplary action such that such mistakes are not repeated in the future.
By: CA Lalit Munoyat
It is being said in some parts of Central India that if you don’t have anything to do be a school/college teacher. Same is being heard about young, CAs now a days that if you don’t have assignments, be an observer, checker and if more than 5 years in practice be examiner. If you dont have anything to do and for just sack of money, if anyone becomes observer/checker then possibility of such paper leakage can not be avoided. CA was known as noble profession with very high respect in the society but as i think during last decade the quality of CAs produces deteriorated on account of ICAI’s policy of Marching ahead with expansion and increasing numbers without noticing quality which is injurious to the profession. In my opinion all the expansions should be stopped, exams should be schedules once in a year to stop just increasing numbers untill and unless, we get back the dignity we were known for.
Dear Lalit,
I appreciate your work, going beyond official scope to make sure nothing goes wrong.
The successive persons responsible at institute have screwed up the reputation of once a very noble profession. God save the profession.
These are gross negligence of the whole examination ccommittee. The responsibility of conducting the CA examination should be delegated to the well experienced members of our Institute. Our members are not working merely for money but they want to work to keep up our Institute’s reputation.
Since there are always the backup sets of Question papers and There was 4 days time gap between the audit paper and the ITSM paper then why did the Mr. president changed the schedule of examination. Exam can be held at the same schedule with the different set of paper. Papers could be distributed in these 4 days at all the centres vault.
I fully agree with CA Lalit Munoyat. CPT Students are less matured and private coaching classes are deteriorating the image of the ICAI and the profession in the society. High standards of the Institute are set aside and the value of the profession is at stake. We must think of the same. Otherwise, one day CAs shall have no value…
I fail to understand how coaching at a private coaching class is not considered as a business by ICAI. COP of all members linked with coaching classes should be cancelled.
Sometimes I feel ICAI is being run for coaching classes only. Our present and past members have great relationship with coaching classes and spend most of their time and our resources for nourishing coaching classes.
There is no guarantee that crooks and vandals of coaching classes are not appointed as examiner or coordinator. it is also possible that iCAi has outsourced examination work to coaching classes.
Congrats ICAI. ICAI will soon follow standards of Bihar Board.
CA Lalit Munoyat for your kind information coordinator job is not to visit the Examination centre, his job is over when once at the initial stage where question paper’s arrives at the Bank before the exams. Once the papers are dumped at the Bank after verifying the correctness of the no of packets, his job is over. Coordinator’s is left with no further job. Conducting true and fair examinations is then the job of Centre Supervisor and Centre Observer.
I fully agree with the views of Mitesh and in fact I have already started evaluating the prospects of the course suggested by you for my son who is also one of the victim of this mess.
Sir They should do one thing. For all papers there should be one or two back up papers which they can replace in case of such situation.
It appears the person doing the job were acting as if it is a part time job. Institute should look into the matter and identify the root cause and take strict correction actions/implement policies. Many people are doing their job as part time in CA institute.
Those who are responsible for this situation should be held accountable and be suitably punished and should be debarred permanently from this job of conducting the examination.
High standards should be maintained for the CA course.
What a Mismanagement in handling a system in conducting exams. What the examination comittee is doing?
Now days CMA is better in comparison to CA according to syllabus, quality, duration, salary etc.
Though the codes are to be checked by the Bank Staff,who hands over, College staff, who receives the bundle, by the CA observer who is deputed by ICAI and by the college staff who opened and distributed it is clear that none of them have taken care to check and the students are put to lot of hardship in the form of wastage of time and money.
Yes. I fully agree with the observations of the readers. As I had written the news at the urgent I could concentrate only on the local problems which the students were facing. Clash of two exams on the same date is a very crucial issue and had very rightly been pointed out. Readers are advised to contribute more and more their concerns so that the real issues involved in the system are brought to the knowledge of the Highest Authority of ICAI. Seondly I fully agree with the worth of CPT which has opened floodgate to the IPPC. What level of maturity do we expect of a student who has just cleared his 1st Year B.Comm and immediately thereafter appears for the 1st Level of CA Course where papers are supposed to be of a knowledge base acquired at the completion of graduation. The private coaching classes are a menace and I have seen many students just reading the short notes of the classes before appearing for their exams. The course modules of the institutes are totally ignored as worthless viv-a-vis the private coaching notes. The worth of the course was regarded very high when the admission to the course was restricted to those who secured 50% marks in thie graduation. It is very sad to see the credibility going doing so steeply in a very short span of time. The Pvt coaching classes vie for the best faculty and the faculty consists mostly of the members of the institute itself and each student has to virtually bleed through his nose to pay the high fees of the classes. This type of menace has to be stopped in the bud itself otherwise the ICAI COURSE may further loose its credibility. Pl contribute more and more views for the betterment of the members.
Apart from Travel & Stay there are some more problems faced by the students. The number of students also appear for there B. Com. Exams. In Nagpur university B. Com. Final paper was on 23rd May. The students have no other choice to miss the paper.
The concerned guilty peoples should be pannelised for their negligence. Others are suffering a lot for their negligence.
Continue .. I repeat at cost of CA degrees value and future of students. As far as Paper leaking is concern only question to answer this situation is ” why this had ot happened in past as is gaining momentum now-a-days”?
I would with you on point that CA course is now equated with commerce course. Trust me CA are paid 15000/- or even less. I have my friends on record who are sitting idle for months as there is no job for CA. I would blame the committee who brought the concept of CPT. It would be my request to members of institute to just talk to new fresher CA and ask them basic questions and they wont have answers because they r not matured enough to know such things. CPT concept is excellent for tuitions and ICAI people to earn money but at cost i re