Students get mock paper for Pol Sc. exam as DU claims OBEs'running smoothly'

new delhi: As the Delhi University on Friday claimed before the Delhi High Court that the online open-book exams for final-year undergraduate students were running smoothly, students appearing for their political science examination on the same day had received a mock or sample question paper instead of the official exam question paper.

One student from the Zakir Hussain College here said she received the mock exam paper first on her email at 11 am and then the question paper was uploaded to the DU exam portal in half an hour. After a few puzzling minutes, Aliya, the political science student, switched off her phone internet and started writing the exam.

At about 2.45 p.m. I switched off the internet and saw that students had shared the official exam paper. But I had already finished, scanned my answer sheet and uploaded it on the portal," she said, adding that college authorities blamed her and asked her to write the exam again and answer the original question paper. She then emailed her answers to the college.

Karan Dule, a final year Political Science student too got the mock exam paper. "I was initially shocked when I saw that it was the mock paper. I refreshed the portal, but nothing happened. After waiting for a few minutes, I switched off my internet and started writing the exams a little after 11.30 a.m. and finished it by 3 p.m. After scanning the pages and uploading them on the portal, when I switched on my phone, I was shocked to see that there was an official paper after all,"

he said.

According to the students, the original paper was uploaded within 20 minutes, by which most of the students had already started attempting the paper and had not seen WhatsApp. "The majority of the students were in the same position," Karan

said.

Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court on Friday while hearing an appeal filed by the University against the decision allowing it to conduct the OBEs. While the varsity opposed the court's earlier decision to constitute an external Grievance Redressal Committee, Justice Hima Kohli on Friday questioned DU as to why it felt threatened by the committee if everything was in fact "squeaky clean".

After heated multiple representations from the varsity to the court, the high court finally allowed one member of DU's choice to be on the Grievance Redressal Committee, dismissing all other options suggested by the university's

counsel.