Around 12 lakh Chartered Accountant(CA) students ran riots on September 23, Monday, across the nation alleging that the Institute Of Chartered Accountants Of India (ICAI) Board practises manipulative and faulty evaluation techniques to check the papers.

The CA students continue to throng ICAI office across the country to demand accountability from the examination body. A massive protest continues in front of the ICAI Bhawan in Delhi since Monday.

The students demand the revaluation of their papers and reconsider Section 39 of the CA Regulation. According to the Section 39, “the Council may, in its discretion, revise the marks obtained by all candidates or a section of candidates in any particular paper or papers or in the aggregate in such manner as may be considered necessary, for maintaining the standards of pass percentage provided in these Regulations.”

According to the CA students, the answer sheets were not evaluated diligently as the institute deliberately tampered with the results in the second and third stages to maintain its passing percentage. The pass percentage is maintained below 20% every year. In 2019, ICAI passed around 17% of students who appeared for May 2019 second-level- IPCC. 

Breaking Down The CA examination

ICAI is an institution that conducts exams for CA(entry-level). The examination comes with three levels – CPT; IPCC which is further classified into two categories – Group 1 and Group 2(The students who clear the two levels get qualified for the Intermediate level); and the Final.

Students’ Demands 

Some of the primary demands,

• Re-evaluation of the answer sheets
• Digitization and centralization of the whole evaluation process
• Strict actions against the evaluators if they make errors while evaluating the papers
• Scope for attending question through different ways and techniques
• Allow students to mark the circles on OMR sheets in exams with pens
• Reconsider Section 39 of the CA Regulation

How Did It All Start?

The demand to reform the evaluation practise was raised in December last year. The demand got reverberated last week when the ICAI released ‘Suggested Answers’ to the May 2019 exam. 

When the suggested answers were compared with the answer sheets by the students, they observed many discrepancies. The students found that right answers were not awarded any marks and in some cases, the total marks differed with those allotted in the mark sheets.

“Since the corrections are manual, there is scope of human errors because of which something as trivial as adding the marks can go wrong There is no strict vigilance and even when there are multiple reviews done in the answer sheets, it’s the first evaluation that decided the fate,” says a Bengaluru based CA who wishes anonymity. Even when the papers are pushed for the revaluation, only 1-2 out of 50 cases get favourable results. She believes that hard-work pays 35%; luck plays 70%.

Hence, the agitation began over the debilitating condition of the faulty evaluation process. This soon started trending on social media platforms as well under #ICAIpleasechange.

The Pressing Concerns Of The Students –

“There are questions which can be solved by 2 or more methods based on interpretation of the student.  As per the Institute, students are free to make their interpretation of the question and solve accordingly.” Aditya Tulshibagwale, a CA student told The Logical Indian, “But when a student makes his own interpretation and solves the question correctly, evaluator end up awarding zero marks for not writing as per model answer.”

Anushka Ghosh, an Article working in Pune also told The Logical Indian that it is really unfair that the answer sheets of such a highly professional course are being verified by incompetent people. Sometimes people are not even related to the course but are the checkers nonetheless.

ICAI Refutes Claims

The President of ICAI, Prafulla Chhajed, briefed media on the concerns raised by the students who have appeared in the examination.

According to Chhajed, the robust and quality system of the examination has never been compromised. “We have initiated digital checking of the answer sheets to ensure that the scope of human error is completely eradicated… India is a big country and centralization of the evaluation is not possible. We have come up with providing centralized checking alternatively. The examiners are made to gather at one place and the managers monitor the efficiency of the checkers while making them check there and then.”

The ICAI claims that they have installed cameras in front of the checkers to ensure that the same checker is examining the paper. The camera at sporadic intervals clicks the picture of the checker.

Chhajed further said, “the results cannot be manipulated as they come in the coded language…. We don’t have the verification of the answer book because we feel that we maintain the quality of checking the answer sheets.”

Chhajed quashed the claims made around the paper that went viral on social media platforms where 14 marks were allotted to a student who deserved to get 41. “After monitoring the paper we got to know that the case was as old as 2 years,” said Chhajed.

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