What
was fast degenerating into an ugly spat between individuals in the HRD
Ministry and the IIM fraternity was today nudged back to a dialogue
process on the future of these institutions and their autonomy.
Without compromising on its position, the Indian
Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, got the Supreme Court to agree to
put off the PIL challenging the IIM fee cut by three months and wait
for the outcome of the dialogue IIMA has initiated with the Ministry
on the vexed issue.
The bench headed by Chief Justice V N Khare
accepted the adjournment request even after IIMA and its Bangalore
counterpart declared their intention to charge an annual fee of Rs 1.5
lakh in the teeth of the Government’s order to reduce that to Rs
30,000.
Since the bench did not object to their open
defiance of the fee cut order, and since the Government itself kept
quiet about it in the court today, the Ahmedabad and Bangalore
institutes are all set to intimate the existing fee of Rs 1.5 lakh to
the incoming class around May 8.
This will, however, create an anomalous situation
as the other four IIMs will charge 80% less fee in keeping with the
resolutions they have already passed in favour of the Government order
of February 5. The counsel for IIMA, senior advocate Anil Divan, said
that if the ongoing dialogue does not resolve the fee cut controversy
by the next hearing of the PIL towards July-end, then the institute
would file an independent petition.
Clearly, the strategy of the Ahmedabad institute,
which is the oldest and most prestigious of the IIMs, is to assert its
right to deal with the fee cut and the related autonomy issues on its
own—and in its own way.
The sidelining of the PIL became evident when at
the beginning of today’s hearing Divan cut short the counsel for the
PIL petitioners, senior advocate Harish Salve, and said that IIMA
wanted the litigation to be kept in abeyance in veiw of its ongoing
talks with the Government. This led to a spat between the two senior
advocates as Salve called it a change in IIMA’s stand from what it
stated in its affidavit. He even alleged that this change was another
sign of the Government’s ‘‘arm-twisting’’ of the IIMs. Salve
sought to substantiate his charge by reading out several excerpts from
IIMA’s affidavit, including the recorded proceedings of its
society’s meeting of March 9 where the HRD Ministry’s joint
secretary, V S Pandey, threatened to take over if the institute did
not fall in line with the fee cut order. But as the other IIMs readily
agreed with IIMA’s dialogue initiative and even expressed a
willingness to join it, the bench adjourned the hearing saying it
would not let the PIL come in the way of a resolution outside the
court. The Government counsel, additional solicitor general Mukul
Rohtagi, welcomed the dialogue process but reiterated that the PIL
should all the same be dimissed on the ground of locus standi.
IIMA’s counsel disclosed that its chairman, N R Narayana Murthy, had
formed a negotiating committee comprising Jerry Rao, visiting faculty
and chairman of NASSCOM, B H Jajoo, faculty and board member, and J R
Verma, faculty member. The committee has already held its first
meeting with higher education secretary S C Tripathy in the HRD
Ministry. When the PIL comes up next in July, the IIMs and HRD
Ministry are required to report the results of their discussions.
