Shunglu panel exceeded brief, say IIM faculty

Professors of Indian Institute of Management (IIM) said the Shunglu Committee had exceeded its brief by offering an opinion on the business schools' spat with the ministry of human resources development.

Ashish Bhattacharya, professor at IIM Kolkata, said though the committee had the prerogative to look into the financial statements of the institutes, it had gone beyond its mandate and considered parameters which ought to have been dealt with by the IIMs' boards of governors.

Bhattacharya said the committee had sought details from IIMs on the student-teacher ratio, the number of visiting faculty and the number of sessions that the faculty are expected to take. This, Bhattacharya said, had very little relevance to the terms of reference of the committee.

Sandeep Parekh, visiting professor at IIM Ahmedabad, who has filed a petition in the Supreme Court to restore the autonomy of the management institutes, also felt the committee had gone beyond its prerogative.

"The commission was expected to offer an objective analysis of the facts and not its opinion. But the manner in which it had demanded financial statements from the IIMs indicated early on that the recommendations would be in favour of the ministry," he said.

"By toeing the government's line the committee has acted like an agency of the ministry," Parekh added.

Bhattacharya said the right course for the ministry now would be to put up the recommendations for scrutiny by experts.

"It should also be discussed and debated after being circulated at the institutes," he said.