The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) has written to the management claiming that many eligible candidates who've passed the written test have not been called for the viva. The Union is believed to have received several emails from candidates who have stated that they have got the required marks but haven't been called for an interview.
As per the JNU admission prospectus, the eligibility criteria for admissions to the MPhil and PhD is 50 percent for general category candidates and 45 percent for candidates belonging to the SC/ST/OBC (non-creamy layer)/PWD category. The JNUSU say they've received several emails from candidates who have sent in their answer sheets and the answer keys to prove that they've attained the required marks. One such candidate, Akansha Soni, says that she's a general category student who has received 50 percent marks and has not been called for the interview.
Another student, Drappy Tyagi, says she answered all the 50 questions in the paper and according to the answer key, she got 41 right. "Each question carries two marks so my total score is 82 out of 100. Despite scoring 82 percent, I haven't been called for the interview," she wrote in her email to the JNUSU President, N Sai Balaji.
Another candidate, Vishal Verma, an OBC student, who attempted three of the MPhil entrances had the same complaint. The three entrance exams he attempted were — Russia and Central Asian Studies, Social Science in Health and Educational Studies. He managed to get 74, 58 and 50 in each of the papers respectively according to the answer keys. "Please do something to help me and other deserving students like me get justice," he says in his email to the student leader.
When more and more students began to approach the Union, the JNUSU put out a statement asking students to send proof of these allegations, so they could compile it. When we reached out to Balaji to ask for an approximate number of students who had had similar complaints, he said, "They're numerous, we couldn't keep track."
"Not only have the majority of these applicants cleared the cut-off, but their individual scores have also crossed high scores of 60-70 as per the revised key of released by the NTA, and yet these applicants have not been called for viva by the university," the JNUSU said its letter to the Director of Admissions.
Calling this an 'exclusionary act', the JNUSU said that the future of many students is at stake and that the University was violating its own norms. "On behalf of the applicants we would like to state the clear demand that JNU should at the earliest call all those candidates who have scored 50% or above marks for General Category and 45% or above marks for candidates belonging to SC/ST/OBC (non-creamy layer)/PWD category in the Computer Based Test (CBT) shall be called for the viva voce examination," the Council wrote.