@ Deepak....agreed with your statistics, definitely its factual. Besides increased passing %, the overall situation of the job market is itself bad...for everybody.
And the figures of salaries which you quoted are given by ur senior members to our junior members in majority cases. So the worth of CA is decided by just another CA and not necessarily by someone who is not a CA (thought there will be many such cases too).
When passing % was low, the situation wasnt this bad. Hence, im sure you would agree that demand supply factors worked in favor of CAs.
Now when its not working in favor, as an employer, I think its absolutely fair for people to quote such figures. If they are quoting the same and also finding candidates to work at that level, why would they pay more.
Hence, like you said...collectively if all decide not to work below a certain salary level, things can be better, unless companies are able to find semi qualified or bcom or others to do the work and make some adjustments on quality either by compromising or by spending more on training and ensuring quality.
@ Jyoti....reference surely is one of the criterias for a job and has gained a lot of importance. But please dont think this is unfair. I would like to quote my blog https://krunal-raichura.blogspot.in/2009_03_01_archive.html for your kind reference. Maybe this article could change your perspective. There are some other articles as well.
And at times, even the people who recruit do not like the reference system, but still they have to consider references. This is because as an organisation, you deal with various forces in the environment. You have customers, suppliers, dealers, key employees, government authorities etc. And at times you have no choice but to oblige them. For example if you become a practicing CA who specialises into tax. If you have to regularly deal with people at income tax for your important matters and some day one of the officer asks you to consider a candidate for articleship / job, you may (im not saying you have to, but you may) have to oblige to him. If you dont, it may not harm you necessarily, but you might loose out an opportunity to stregthen your relationships and make life easy for yourself and clients. If you consider his candidate, he may be kind enough to you someday and help you with quite a lot of things. This kind of dealing is not necessarily a bribe, but its all about relationship building. At times, it will actually act like a bribe...i.e. people have to compulsorily oblige to such demands, else they are screwed up badly.