CAT could lose some autonomy

High court ruling likely to see IIM directors in exam committee.

The Gujarat High Court has ordered that the exam rules for the common admission test (CAT) be changed in the interests of students.

With this ruling, the directors' forum, comprising the directors of all the six Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), can now intervene in the autonomous functioning of the CAT committee.

The high court told the IIMs on Tuesday to delete from the CAT rulebook the condition that students aspiring to sit for the exam had to graduate from institutes affiliated to the Association of Indian Universities.

The CAT committee, made up of the six chairpersons of the admission committees of the IIMs, would discuss the changes in exam rules, sources said.

They added that Tuesday's development also allowed the directors to become part of the CAT committee to ensure that controversies related to the entrance test died down.

"An urgent meeting of the CAT committee is being called shortly to discuss the issues and the meeting may be held in Ahmedabad. Some of the IIM directors also are of the opinion that they should take active part in the admission process, which so far has been left exclusively to the respective admission committees of the IIMs and the centrally created CAT committee," sources said.

"The CAT has been dogged by controversies, which has muddied the image of the IIMs," a source close to IIM, Ahmedabad, Director Bakul Dholakia said though the director refused to comment on the matter.

The controversy erupted after three students of the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology, who scored over 90 per cent in the CAT, were denied interviews by the IIMs as the institute was not affiliated to the Association of Indian Universities. In fact, one of the three students had fetched a record CAT score of over 95 per cent.

After being denied interviews, the students moved the Gujarat High Court. First, a single-judge Bench heard the case and advised the IIMs that the three students be called for interviews and the affiliation clause changed. Following this order, a Division Bench heard the case on Tuesday on an IIM, Ahmedabad, appeal.

"The CAT rules clearly say that the institute has to be a member of the Association of Indian Universities and this system is in place for over a decade. This is to ensure that that only top students from recognised universities appear for the CAT. The candidates sign in the CAT application form after going through the rules, but in this case, the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology, sensing trouble, had requested us to interview these three students. But IIM-A had written a letter to the institute, expressing its inability to break rules," an IIM, Ahmedabad, source said.

"As directors of the IIMs are actively involved with all the processes post-CAT, they may now be included in the CAT committee, thus ensuring a better system with better co-ordination between the offices of the admission committees in the IIMs and the directors. But a meeting of the directors' forum is also to be convened prior to the CAT committee meeting to adopt a resolution in this respect," the source added.