Taking note of instances of violation of guidelines by the examiners on awarding marks in the clinical exams of MBBS course, the High Court of Karnataka has directed the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences to wake up to reality and take action against delinquent examiners.
“It is now time that the University wakes up to reality and proceeds to take action against delinquent examiners by blacklisting them, or by holding departmental proceedings so that this kind of malpractices do not recur, the court said while observing several instances of malpractice by the examiners affecting the future of students.
Justice P. Krishna Bhat passed the order while allowing two petitions filed by 4 th year MBBS students. The petitioners had complained that they were failed in clinical exams in two subjects due entering only the total marks awarded by the examiners in violation of the guidelines, which mandates all the four examiners to enter marks awarded by them separately in the booklet.
While conducting clinical examinations in future, the RGUHS should take precautionary measures and ensure that malpractices do not take place causing the students to take examination over and over. It is open to the university to device procedural safeguards to ensure compliance of the directions in this order, the court said.
“One of the most frequently heard complaints is that the professors in charge of the clinicals often form a narrow syndicate for helping or salvaging the careers of favoured candidates and scuttling the careers of those who are out of favour with them. It is precisely to keep the streams of clinicals examination unpolluted, the guidelines have been framed to make the entries of marks awarded by each of the examiners then and there separately,” the court observed.
Pointing out that the examiners, in the petitioners’ case, have demonstrably failed to abide by the guidelines, the court said that “these guidelines are not mere superfluous verbiage for filling the pages of a brochure of the university.”
Since examiners violated the guidelines, the court said that it is open to be contended that the examiners did not actually assess the performance of the petitioners and the same was filled up later by someone else.
“It is a framework of solemn significance with regard to conduct of clinical examinations in fulfilment of the course content of MBBS studies. It is not unoften that students of MBBS and MD courses complain about the malpractices by those in-charge of conduct of clinical examinations,” the court observed while directing the varsity to conduct a fresh practical exam to the petitioners in two subjects.
