CA student protest : ICAI President states 'will look into grievances'

The president of ICAI, Prafulla Chhajed finally appeared in front of the media on Thursday and said that the institute is considering forming an independent committee to look into the grievances of the students. This comes after an ongoing protest and long-trending hashtag #icaipresidentmissing made rounds on social media. Students have been protesting against the absence of a re-evaluation rule from the official CA exams, as per reports. While they have been seeking clarity from the authority for a long time, it is only now that Prafulla Chhajed has spoken up.  

ICAI President Prafulla Chhajed’s Statement 

Prafulla Chhajed cleared ICAI’s stand by saying that they adopt multiple levels of monitoring for quality evaluation of answer sheets. He said in a press conference that, “We are considering to form an independent, high-level committee to look into the grievances of the students as well as to suggest the roadmap for the future. I will discuss the issue with council members before announcing the formation of the committee”. While the president has now hinted that they are open to listening to the grievances of the students, the body still demands to permanently include the provision of re-evaluation in the official Chartered Accountants Regulations of 1988.  

Read: CA students protest against ICAI and demand transparency

Read: ICAI CA students protest: Netizens create buzz to summon the president

CAs Protest  

Students and qualified CA’s have been protesting against the Chartered Accountants Regulations of 1988, which forbids the examination papers to be re-evaluated. However, the regulation allows re-counting of the given marks, but a re-evaluation is not possible. Regulation 39(4) of the act needs to be amended in order to introduce the re-evaluation of papers. The provision, which is applicable to this situation states, “Regulation 39(4)(ii): The fee shall be only for verifying whether the candidate's answers in any particular paper or papers have been examined and marked, and not for the re-examination of the answers”.

Gandhi support to protest

Rahul Gandhi had also offered support to the protesting students. He took to Twitter and urged all political parties to lend support to this protest. 

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