Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Thursday directed the Mumbai University to file its reply on a plea accusing the university of complete negligence in providing infrastructure for assessment of answer sheets using the new on-screen marking (OSM) system.
A Division Bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and Riyaz Chagla was hearing a petition filed by the Bombay University and College Teachers’ Union and five professors from colleges in the city. They have alleged improper implementation of the OSM by the Mumbai University, its registrar and the director of the Board of Examinations and Evaluations for the assessment of Arts, Commerce, Science, Computer Management System and Law answer sheets.
They have also said that the university failed to constitute a Board of Information Technology as mandated by the Maharashtra Public Universities Act, 2016.
The court said, “You (teachers and the university) should have prepared in advance to meet the deadline. This is like demonetisation,” and directed the university to file a reply in two weeks.
The petitioners want the court to direct the university to make available at least 2,000 computers connected to the server by intranet at the Kalina campus for assessment of next semester’s answer sheets under the OSM system.
They also want sufficient computers to be provided to all assessment centres with a minimum of 100 Mbps download speed, and to postpone implementation of the OSM system till this infrastructure was provided.
