Punjabi University students at Patiala launch protest over ‘wrongful’ marking of answer sheets

Patiala, August 17

Students of Punjabi University, Patiala, have started a protest against the university authorities, demanding re-evaluation of their results after many of them failed or were awarded zero in the recently held semester examinations.

According to the students’ claims, the university awarded far less marks and failed the students who have been performing well in the previous examinations. The students of various courses — LLB, PGDCA, BA and those from the department of distance learning and others from affiliated colleges have gathered on the campus over the matter.

Karan Singh, one of the protesters, said, “For an instance, the university has failed 87 of the 92 students of the PGDCA course in the same subject. Similarly, over 300 students have been awarded zero in one or the other paper despite the fact that they performed well in the previous semester examinations.”

The students said the university had been making mistakes in checking the answer sheets and awarding marks.

“We had held a protest earlier as well. The university assured us that they would recheck the papers and release the results. But they have not done so,” Singh added.

Another protester said, “We will have to pay re-evaluation fees in case we are forced to apply for re-checking. Also, the university takes a lot of time, even up to six months, to release the results. We demand that the result of re-evaluation and re-appear exams be released within two months.”

University’s Controller of Examinations AK Tiwari said, “These students scored low marks in their exams. Some scored zero, others five or 10. We got the papers of 20 of them re-checked on their request without charging the re-evaluation fees. But the marks of only two of them got increased in the re-evaluation. Still we are holding re-evaluation of papers of others, and the results will be declared in a few days.”