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Law student alleges marks manipulation by MU, demands inquiry
A 44-year-old M.Phil student alleges Mumbai University tampered with his exam scores to ensure he failed, threatening legal action if no inquiry occurs.
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Mumbai: A 44-year-old M.Phil student at the University of Mumbai (MU) has alleged that the university’s law department tampered with his scores to ensure he failed in his exams. Sachin Adkar has threatened to file a police complaint against the officials involved if the university fails to conduct a formal inquiry.
The case dates back to the 2021-22 academic year, when Adkar enrolled in the M.Phil programme after doing his LLM from the same university. Along with four other students, he appeared for three theoretical exams in July 2022. However, when the results were released, Adkar’s name was missing from the list of successful candidates. This led him to file multiple RTI applications to obtain clarity about his marks.
In response to his RTI queries, the law department stated that since M.Phil is a research-oriented course, only the names of students who pass all three subjects are published. The department further noted that there is no provision to release individual answer sheets for these exams. According to Adkar, the university refused to disclose his scores, claiming he had failed all three exams and was, therefore, ineligible to see his marks or request a re-evaluation.
“I was being denied my basic right to see my own marks,” he said. “The department of law is refusing to allow re-evaluation, even though the commerce department within the same university has previously provided re-evaluation lists for M.Phil students. Why is there a double standard?”
Adkar wrote a letter to Ramesh Bais, the governor of Maharashtra and MU chancellor at the time, about his ordeal. Following Bais’s intervention, Adkar was eventually granted access to his answer sheets, but the marks were concealed. “I requested certified copies of my answer sheets, but when they finally provided them, my marks were masked,” he said.
When Adkar finally received the full, unaltered answer sheets, he was shocked to discover what he claims is clear evidence of tampering. “One of my answers, which originally earned me 16 marks, was altered to show a score of six. It wasn’t just an isolated mistake; the marks for multiple questions were overwritten,” he stated.
Adkar is now demanding an official inquiry into the matter, alleging that the university’s actions were deliberate. He has made it clear that if the university fails to address the issue, he will take legal action against the officials responsible.
MU has yet to issue a formal response to Adkar’s allegations. The university also did not respond to HT’s request for comment.
