Results of December law exams delayed

Mumbai: Nearly 23,067 answer papers of the law examinations conducted in December last year are yet to be assessed by the Mumbai University (MU), with the varsity stating on Wednesday that it will rope in practising lawyers to help in the assessment.

Along with this, business law teachers of second year B.Com. will assess the remaining law papers. The university claimed that the reason for the delay was shortage of teachers to assess the papers.

Dr Arjun Ghatule, in-charge director of board of examinations and evaluation, MU, told The Asian Age, “Every other result, except that of law, and some small courses, has been declared on time. The problem with the law course assessment is that there is less number of teachers because of which assessment has been delayed till now. After meeting teachers and students’ representatives, we have come up with a solution of pitching for professional lawyers but eventually, existing teachers only will have to manage and get the work done.”

Sources close to the varsity confirmed that around 90 per cent of the existing faculty and teachers who were supposed to carry out the assessment work were professional lawyers, as well.

“They have to do both assessment and their work which reduces the speed of work. This is nothing new as every year, this the case. There are only 200 to 250 teachers and the number of answer papers was 48,943,” a source informed.

Last year too, during the assessment of summer examination answer papers, law students had to wait a little longer as every year, the shortage of teachers delays their results. Meanwhile, students of Bachelor of Law  and Masters of Law courses have claimed that they have been waiting for their results since the past three months. Sachin Pawar, president of students law council, said, “The VC assured that all the pending papers will be assessed and the results will be declared within 10 days.”