Sambalpur: Some second-year undergraduate students staged a protest in Gangadhar Meher University (GMU), Sambalpur, on Wednesday against the decision by authorities to hold a retest following an alleged question paper leak.
According to reports, while the internal examination of UG students began on Dec 2, the common paper of English language of all streams was conducted on Dec 4. However, a day later, the varsity authorities suspected that the question paper was leaked before the exam. Subsequently, the authorities declared the examination null and void and decided to conduct a re-test on Dec 12. A notice in this regard was also issued on Dec 5. However, the students protested the decision of re-examination and demanded their marks be evaluated based on the exam conducted on Dec 4.
Students alleged that though the English examination was scheduled to be conducted on Dec 4 in all departments, due to some miscommunication within the varsity administration, BBA and BSc IST department conducted the English examination earlier, and it was conducted for the rest of the departments on Dec 4 with the same question paper, which led to the paper leak fiasco.
An agitating student, Lambodhar Meher, said, “Whatever happened was an outcome of the negligence of the varsity. Why should we appear for re-examination because of their fault? We staged a protest to express our disagreement with the decision.”
Deputy registrar U C Pati, said, “To curb any possible impact of the question paper leak, the decision for re-examination was taken. However, after discussion with the students, the re-examination has been cancelled for the time being. Since the vice-chancellor was not present on Wednesday, the discussion could not reach any conclusive end. But we will discuss it with the students soon. The VC has also formed an inquiry committee to ascertain the facts.”