CMA Exams 2021 : Plea In Supreme Court Seeks Cancellation Of ICMAI's Online Tests For Alleged Malpractices

A writ petition has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking to cancel the home-based online tests of Cost Management Accounting(CMA) intermediate and final levelss held by the Institute of Cost Accountants of India(ICMAI) in January-February 2021.

The petition filed by a student of Cost Management Accounting(CMA) Final course, who alleges widespread malpractices in the exam, which affected its credibility and sanctity.

According to the petitioner, the online home-based exams were conducted by the same vendor which had already failed in providing reliable Remote Proctoring for the National Law Admission Test(NLAT) of September-2020, which was ultimately set aside by the Supreme Court in the case Rakesh Kumar Agarwalla & Another Vs. National Law School of India University Bengaluru and Others. The Supreme Court had cancelled the NLAT in September last week on the ground that the home-based online test failed in ensuring transparency, fairness and integrity which are essential in an exam process.

It was on October 18, 2020 that the ICMAI took the decision to hold home-based online tests. The petitioner says that this decision was taken overlooking the reservations expressed by three senior members of the council regarding home-based online test.

In a reply to an application under the RTI,  the ICMAI informed that about 65% of the students had opted for the CENTER-BASED Examination. In spite of that, the Institute continued to persist with its earlier decision of Home-based remote AI-proctored examination for about 23,500 students.

The petitioner alleges that "mass-scale cheating" was reported when the exams started in January 2021, with answers being circulated on WhatsApp and live exam sessions being shared on Social media

Though the students reported such instances to the authorities, the petitioner alleges that no action was taken.

Instead of taking cognizance of large-scale cheating complaints, the petitioner says that the ICAI issued a circular which slammed the reports of cancellation of exams as "false propaganda". Further, the ICMAI said in the circular that it has lodged an FIR against "miscreants trying to degrade the dignity and integrity of the examination".

The petitioner alleges that the Institute chose to intimidate the whistleblower students by official threats of police actions and severe rustication alleging malafide intent to defame the Institute.

The petitioner further says that diverse technical glitches showed up in the live-examination, and human-proctor support was found to be grossly inadequate. This led to the affected students frantically writing to the Examination Department. The complaints were so overwhelming that the Examination Department was immobilised and couldn't answer them at all, thereby leaving exam-facing students in panic, the petitioner alleges.

"Instead of acknowledging the proctoring failures and initiating effective counter-measure OR suspending further conduct of the examination, the Institute chose to label all Whistle-blowers as TROUBLE-MAKERS, directed them to cease sharing their concerns publicly and threatened them of debarring for up to FIVE YEARS", the petition says.

The petitioner says that even two months after widespread reporting of malpractices in the Examination, the Institute has not initiated any forensic verification of video-evidence submitted by the students.

It is said that due to severe technical glitches, the exams got stretched over a period of 8 weeks, for 24 days, from rom 03.01.2021 to 24.02.2021 instead of normal schedule of just 8 days.