New Delhi, June 10 (UNI) The Supreme Court Monday canceled its first-ever computer-based test for the annual Advocate on Record (AoR) Examination due to technical glitches.
About 120 people appeared for the Supreme Court AOR paper-1 Monday in the computer-based mode. After nearly half of the paper, the system crashed. The majority of the people were not able to complete their exams after an hour or so.
By 12:30 pm everybody was standing outside the exam hall talking with the registry officials. Eventually, the Secretary General of the Supreme Court arrived at the hall.
The paper for today’s exam was ‘Practice and Procedure’ and was being held at the Guru Hargobind Institute of Management & Information Technology at Anand Vihar in the national capital.
After taking note of the situation the secretary General informed the students that a decision in this regard would be taken by the Committee of Judges.
He also informed that from tomorrow onwards, the exam shall be conducted in the pen and paper mode.
At the last moment, due to the failure of the system, people who were prepared to take the computer-based exam were asked to switch to pen-and-paper mode.
The lawyers appearing for the exam praised the Supreme Court Registry officials who were very cooperative and even ordered food and drinks for all the candidates as they were not allowed to leave the premises and were made to wait till the decision was taken.
Around 120 candidates who appeared for the exam faced technical issues with many candidates unable to write or submit the answer sheets due to computer malfunctions.
While some could not commence their paper, others were able to write for around 2.5 hours before their computers crashed.
The candidates have been assured by the registry that each candidate will now get one hour extra for each paper, and the physical (pen and paper) exams for all will now be held afresh at the Judges’ library at the apex court’s additional building complex.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA) in a letter to the Supreme Court secretary general stated that any decision to now hold the exam in physical mode tomorrow would be “unreasonable” since those who prepared for the online exam cannot suddenly be asked to move to a paper-based exam.
Further, SCAORA in its letter said that the venue for the online exam did not have proper ventilation which left aspirants profusely sweating throughout the exam.
SCAORA has requested the secretary general to take up the issue at the earliest with the Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud so that a positive solution can be worked out.
