The question paper goof-up bug that plagued Mumbai University all this exam season appears to have gone viral. Even as some kind of order returned to the campus with teachers resuming duty, a nationwide CA exam has been pushed back as the wrong question paper was given out in a city college on Monday afternoon.

The Information Technology and Strategic Management paper, which was to be held on Wednesday, has been rescheduled for May 24 as one exam centre at Mittal College, Malad, inadvertently gave it out to candidates on Monday instead of the Auditing and Assurance paper. 

Close to 1.37 lakh students are taking the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India's (ICAI) Intermediate (Integrated Professional Competence) Course that is a level below the CA final exam. 

"We have now pushed Wednesday's exam to a new date across India. It cannot be held on Wednesday as some aspirants managed to see the question paper in one exam centre on Monday," said ICAI president Subodh Kumar Agrawal. 

On Monday morning, an exam supervisor and the CA exam observer posted at Mittal College reached a Bank of Baroda branch where the question papers are stored in a vault. Narendra Singhi, the supervisor, handed over his duplicate of the locker key to the bank manager who, in turn, asked his clerk to get the question paper packet of the day. 

"Instead of giving the PSK bundle, I was given the SMA bundle. But I did not check it," Singhi told ICAI officials. At 1.30pm, the bundles were opened and the question books were given to candidates. "After about ten minutes, the college authorities took the question papers back as we informed them that the wrong paper had been distributed," said a student. 

The college authorities informed the ICAI about the faux pas, which directed the college to go back to the bank and collect the correct question paper so that Monday's exam could be conducted. 

The exam supervisor made a dash to the bank, picked up the right paper bundle and the question books were distributed to student at 2.45pm, following which the exam began at 3pm, an hour later than the scheduled time. (Times of India)