SC allows withdrawal of petition on IIM fee cut

The Supreme Court (SC) has allowed the withdrawal of a writ petition against the ministry of human resource development (MHRD) in the fee-cut controversy of Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) on Monday.

The petitioners had written to the registrar of the Supreme Court seeking permission of the court to withdraw the writ petition on Wednesday and the court gave its consent on Monday, putting an end to the ugly saga.

"We have decided to withdraw the writ petition as our purpose has been solved, as the new ministry has rolled back the order passed by the earlier ministry and has assured that the autonomy of these prestigious institutions will not be encroached upon. The new government has publicly acknowledged the illegality of the fee-cut order and has withdrawn the same. The ministry has also initiated a dialogue with the IIMs and the petitioners are no longer apprehensive about the future of these autonomous institutions," Sandeep Parikh, alumnus of one of the IIMs and one of the petitioners told Business Standard on Monday.

The three petitioners Saikat Sengupta, Anish Methew and Sandeep Parikh, the then student and alumnus of IIMs had filed the public interest litigation (PIL) on February 19 challenging the ministry's fee-cut order of February 5.

The petition challenged had challenged an order dated February 5 of the ministry whereby the fees at the Indian Institutes of Management were cut to Rs 30,000 per annum.

IIM, Ahmedabad also filed an affidavit stating that they thought that in view of the developments the case has become infructuous, while the other IIMs did not file any affidavit.

The matter came for hearing before justices Ruma Pal, S B Sinha and S H Kapadia on Monday. Sameer Parekh, who appeared for the petitioners, stated that since all the pending issues have been resolved to the satisfaction of the petitioners, the ministry and the Indian Institutes of Management, the matter does not need resolution by the Supreme Court and that the petitioners seek to withdraw the public interest litigation.

The advocates for IIM, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Kolkata agreed to the same. At the last hearing on April 16, when the petition was called, the IIMs had sought time in view of the on-going dialogue between IIMs and the HRD ministry.

Since the IIMs were high on the list of detoxification list of the new HRD minister Arjun Singh, he immediately held meetings with the directors of the IIMs to discuss all the pending issues the IIMs had with the ministry.

Later, acknowledging the egregious and illegal manner in which the previous government had passed the order, it was withdrawn on the June 29.

The Indian Institutes of Management were also allowed to decide on their fee structure.