Kurien seeks president's intervention

Last week the Gujarat High Court had ordered to reinstate the ousted Irma director, K Prathap Reddy.

Kurien is learnt to have sought the President's intervention in the controversy over the issue of his lifetime chairmanship and termination of Reddy.

However, the Kurien camp has denied any such move and even has denied commenting on the issue.

The High Court had ordered to reinstate K Prathap Reddy as director of Irma on April 20. However, following the appeal by advocates of Kurien, the court had decided to stay the order till May 2.

Reliable sources told this newspaper that Kurien had summoned two meetings of the faculty members of Irma on Thursday and Friday to discuss the issues before leaving for Delhi. It is also learnt that Kurien had also sought the signatures of faculty members of the institute in a bid to gain their faith and support.

A faculty member, who confirmed the faculty members' meetings with Kurien and his move to collect signatures, on condition of anonymity said," I do not know how much the President has to offer Kurien when the matter is subjudice. But Kurien might have approached Kalam seeking his intervention in the issue as the matter is related to his own credibility and also involves the interests of the institute."

"Since this institute educates students in rural management, and both Kalam and Kurien are inclined towards rural development issues, they have regard for each other. Kurien also heads the Viksit Bharat (Developed India) Foundation, a non-government organisation, which is supported by Kalam."

Kalam had chaired the convocation of Irma in 2002 just before he was nominated the President. Kalam had also inaugurated the silver jubilee symposium of Irma in December last year.

Executive assistant of Kurien, P A Joseph, said," I am not aware of any such move by Kurien as I am on leave." The acting director and faculty member of Irma, L K Vaswani also denied commenting on Kurien's visit to New Delhi.