Law students get incorrect marksheet; MU says ‘technical glitch’

Mumbai: Around 3,064 graduate students of law, affiliated with the University of Mumbai (MU) were in for a shock when they found out their final year marksheets bear the wrong Permanent Roll Number (PRN). This error, which is in the last digit of their PRN number, is likely to affect the LLM admission of thousands of students, the last date of which was Monday.

Results of the sixth semester of a three-year law course were announced by MU on August 10, and students received printed marksheets last week. The issue came to the fore after a student from a Borivali-based law college noticed that the last digit of his 16-digit PRN number was printed as 0 (zero) instead of the actual digit. Upon enquiring with some classmates, they found that all students faced the same issue.

When the student contacted the principal, they found the same mistake and informed the university’s board of examination and evaluation (BoEE).

“The wrong PRN number printed on the marksheet affects our future enrollment. I applied for an LLM course at another college. During the marksheet verification process, I was told my PRN was invalid,” said an LLM aspirant.

The college principal said, “PRN is like a student identity. All data is connected with the PRN, and colleges always verify PRN printed on the mark sheet given by universities. Due to this mess, students who want to seek admission to LLM courses will be in trouble.”

University officials, who scrutinised the complaints, attributed the error to a technical glitch in the printing of PRN on mark sheets. “Marksheets will be reissued to students,” said an official from MU. There was, however, no word on extending the deadline for LLM admission on Monday.

Supriya Karande, a senior senate member at MU called for an investigation and demanded strict action against those responsible for the “mess”.

“The PRN error is the fourth mistake,” pointed out Karande, and listed mark blunders, “Previously, they distributed last academic year’s question paper to this year’s students, they included wrong questions in a paper, as well as provided Marathi question paper for the subject of English drafting.”

She further added, “While the University Grants Commission and Mumbai University talk about DigiLocker and other digitisation processes, MU can’t handle something as basic as printing error free marksheet.”

MU Law students have been facing several issues for the last seven to eight years, said Sachin Pawar, a law graduate, student activist and member of Yuva Sena (BSS). “MKCL is fully responsible for printing the wrong PRN on the marksheet. We demand that MKCL be removed, and another agency be appointed for the same.”