The Hindu Business Line : IIM-B files affidavit in SC over fee cut issue

THE Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B), filed an affidavit on Thursday before the Supreme Court opposing the Union Human Resource Development Ministry's order to reduce the institute's admission fee to Rs 30,000 from Rs 1.50 lakh.

Prof V. Anand Ram, Dean (Administration) and Prof Bringi Dev, Communications Head of IIM-B, told Business Line over the phone that the affidavit had been filed for impleading the institute in the public interest litigation (PIL) in response to the apex court's directive on the matter.

The case is coming up for hearing on Friday.

Prof Dev said that the IIM-B Society would meet ``sometime in May to take stock of the situation and the list of the successful candidates for the new 2-year course would be ready by the first half of May. As of now, the fee old admission fee of Rs 1.50 lakh remains.''

The IIM-Ahmedabad has also decided to maintain the status quo regarding the fee, while IIM-Calcutta has not officially declared the fee for the forthcoming academic session.

This IIM-B's affidavit is the second from two of the six IIMs opposing the Ministry's move. The faculty council of IIM-C has also filed an application for impleading it as a co-respondent in the case.

The PIL has been filed in the apex court by Mr Sandeep Parekh against the Union of India. It is possible that there may not be any response from IIM-C to the apex court's directive tomorrow, according to sources.

However, IIM-C may ask for time for filing an official response.

The scheduled meeting today between Mr Y.C. Deveshwar, Chairman of the IIM-C governing board, and the institute's faculty council was postponed for the time being in view of changing developments, Prof Asish Bhattacharyya, Dean (Planning and Administration) of IIM-C and spokesperson of the Faculty Council, said.

Meanwhile, Mr Sudhakar Ram, CEO of Mastek and an alumnus of IIM-C, has appealed to the President, Mr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, seeking his intervention and support for continuation of autonomy - academic and otherwise - of IIMs.

In his letter, which was made available to Business Line, Mr Ram said that the governance model of the IIMs should not come in the way of their autonomous functioning.

The faculty members of the three IIMs in Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Bangalore have remained firm in opposing the fee-cut, contending that the autonomy of the institutes was linked to their authority on the revenue sources and issues like student-teacher ratio and syllabi.

Incidentally, some of the governing board members of the IIMs in Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Bangalore today confirmed that for the financial year to March 31, 2004, the Ministry had not released any financial assistance to the three institutes on non-Plan account.

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