The protest, led by a few teaching members, aims at making ICAI amend Regulation 39(4) which permits only re-totalling of answer papers.
Students across the country are getting ready to raise their voices against their certifying authority, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), which is the second largest professional accounting body in the world. Students and a few teachers allege that there have been instances of errors in the evaluation of the examination and are demanding that the ICAI amends Regulation 39(4) of the CA Regulations, 1988.
Though initially the protests, in the form of silent assembly and a hunger strike, were supposed to take place across the country from Wednesday, the students and the faculty members who are leading are considering postponing the same.
The seed to protest came after CA Parveen Sharma published a
videoon September 8, which showed that a student had not been awarded the marks they deserved. In the video, Parveen compared the inspected answer sheet with the suggested answers published by the ICAI for that exam. In the answer paper, though the student had given the correct answer for a question, the examiner had awarded zero marks against the same. This drill was consistent for all the answers written by that student, except the very first question, for which the examiner had awarded three marks. In the end, the student failed the paper as they earned a single digit mark, even though the answers deserved much more than what was awarded. However, according to ICAI rules, the paper will not be re-evaluated.
This video became viral in a matter of hours, leading the students to realise the gravity of the situation. Amply supported by other popular faculty members in North India, the message spread across the community about the unfair regulations. The demand of the students is for the institute to permit revaluation of answer papers. This could be a step towards bringing in transparency in the process, they say.
The students also took to Twitter to express their demands and soon, #amend394 became a trending hashtag.
Parveen also sent a letter to the institute, detailing the flaws in the evaluation process and the urgent requirement for reforms. He is part of the group protesting the process, and in another
video, informed that the decision to hold protests was taken due to the lack of response from ICAI on the letter sent by him.
Regulation 39(4)
The Chartered Accountants Act of 1949 and the Chartered Accountants Regulation of 1988 govern the professional lives of the chartered accountants and CA students in India. As per the clauses in the CA regulations, once the results of the CA examinations are published, the students are allowed to apply for re-totalling of their marks on payment of a fixed fee. This fee, however, is only to check if the student’s answers have been examined and marked, and not for re-examining the answers itself. The ICAI checks only for errors on the arithmetical accuracy of marks and omission to evaluate, and not the merits of awarding specific marks to a specific question.
“The fee shall be only for verifying whether the candidate's answers in any particular paper or papers have been examined and marked, and not for the re-examination of the answers,” reads a portion of the clause 39(4).
This is further clarified by the ICAI on its
website where it is stated that it does not permit revaluation of answer books.
Impact
The impact of such a rule was that this particular student cannot use the copy of his or her own answer paper to demand a revaluation of answers by the institute. It is the merit of the awarded marks that were to be questioned there, to which the student is not entitled to, as per the existing norms of the ICAI.
Students keep failing their exams and were unable to understand what the examiners expected, which adversely affected their careers. Janani*, a student who attempted her CA final exams for the fifth time in November, says that this lack of transparency affects the morale of students, as well as their careers. “Beyond a certain number of attempts, students are not even considered to sit for job interviews. I think this is not fair, because the ICAI deprives the student of asking for revaluation, which leads to an increase in attempts. But then, the same ICAI does not regulate the unreasonable demands put forth by recruiters like the upper cap on the number of attempts when searching for a candidate.”
Flaws in process
Speaking to TNM, all-India rank holder and GST expert Mayank* says that whatever the institute claims to do to address the situation is not enough. “A lot of CAs who are given the task of correcting answer papers are not familiar with the subject they are assigned to evaluate. The criteria to enroll as an examiner with the ICAI are pretty basic. They just need to have a certain number of years experience as a qualified CA,” he says.
This point is reiterated by Shriram, a practicing CA from Chennai, who adds that examiners are not required to be subject experts when applying to be an examiner.
“The people who grade the papers need not be faculty members who remain in touch with the paper. In fact, people who take classes are not permitted to be examiners. The ones who are permitted need not have a thorough knowledge of the subject as much as an academician would have. The examiners need not necessarily be academicians,” he says adding that the requirement put forward by the students is genuine, basically because of the subjectivity involved in the process.
Shriram also adds that since the examiners correct the answer sheets in different places, there is no easy and faster avenue to discuss or debate an issue that is in the question paper or in answer sheets. “This issue crops up because fundamentally, people take a stand in their examination, be it the student or the valuer. Then there is subjectivity involved and there is a scope for debate,” he says
“Valuation is a subjective assessment, especially for questions that have multiple answers based on the assumptions made by students in answering that question,” he explains.
Shriram recommends a centralized evaluation in which examiners can sit in one place and do the valuation for a specified period of time and close the process. “Such an arrangement will opened up an arena for people to discuss and debate on contradictions in answers or assumptions made by students. If there is anything to be referred, the examiners can refer between themselves and zero in on a solution.”
What ICAI has to say
ICAI President CA Naveen ND Gupta, in a video published on December 21,