Several first-year students wrote their undergraduate commerce paper barefooted on Monday because Patna University banned students from wearing shoes and socks inside the exam hall. 

The university has banned shoes in the exam hall in a bid to ensure fair examinations. Examinees who wore sandals and slippers were allowed to keep their footwear on.

Students were asked to come in sandals and slippers because invigilators had caught students with chits hidden inside their shoes and socks on Friday. Based on the university directive, students were asked to leave their socks and shoes outside the exam hall at the Patna College centre.

Patna University vice-chancellor Y.C. Simhadri said: “The university decided to ban shoes inside the exam hall as invigilators found many students with chits hidden in their socks and shoes.”

Simhadri had visited Patna Science College on Friday and some teachers complained about students hiding chits inside their shoes during the exam. This prompted him to issue the order.

The directive has not gone well with the students who said the university authorities were treating them like toddlers.

“I have never heard or read about such an idea,” said Pranav Pandey, an examinee at the Patna College centre. “The vice-chancellor is treating us like preschool kids. This is not how you stop students from resorting to unfair means during an exam.”

“It is inhuman on the part of the university administration to ask students to remove their shoes and socks before entering the exam hall,” said another student, preferring anonymity. “It is uncomfortable to sit barefoot in the scorching heat.”

Simhadri, however, was unmoved. “If students are saying that it is uncomfortable to write the exam barefooted because of the heat, the logic does not stand,” he said. “ It is comfortable to work barefooted that sitting in the heat for hours in shoes and socks. It will save them from perspiration.”

Teachers at the university said banning shoes inside the exam hall had started yielding results because only one student was caught using unfair means at Patna College.

The university administration, on an earlier occasion,  had used various mechanisms to stop students from cheating in the exam.

“The university administration had even hired female constables earlier to frisk female students,” said a senior teacher at Patna University on condition of anonymity. “They banned cellphones and other gadgets in the hall too but these steps did not yield any results.”