All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has issued a show cause notice to the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM).
"In the light of what happened recently, we have served a show cause notice to IIPM asking them to explain their stand and also why action should not be taken against them," said Shankar S Mantha, Chairman, AICTE.
University Grants Commission (UGC) and AICTE had last month told Business Standard that they are consulting their respective legal departments to take suitable action against IIPM.
IIPM has 18 branches through out the country offering courses in Bachelor in Business Administration (BBA), Masters in Business Administration (MBA), Executive MBA and Bachelor of Computer Application (BCA).
While AICTE, country's technical education regulator, has listed all of IIPM's branches under its list of 330-odd unapproved institutions, it says the state government also needs to take action in this regard.
"We give 15 days to an institution to reply to the notice. Technically we can escalate things as within the AICTE Act, there are several actions we can take. But in doing this also, there is a procedure to follow and AICTE will abide by that," added Mantha.
Last month, a Gwalior court ordered blocking of 73 uniform resource locators (URLs) that relate to content against IIPM after an IIPM business partner complained “defamatory material" on the institute was published on these pages.
Prior to the order, the UGC had in February issued a public notice informing students and the public at large that the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) is not a university and does not have the right to confer or grant degrees.
UGC in the notice said, "...Indian Institute of Planning and Management is not a university within the meaning of Section 2(f) of the UGC Act 1956. Further as per section 22 of the UGC Act 1956, IIPM does not have the right of conferring or granting degrees as .specific of conferring or granting degrees by the UGC under Section 22 (3) of the UGC Act."
"It is further clarified for information that IIPM is neither entitled to award MBA/BBA/BCA degree nor it is recognised by UGC," the notice adds.
IIPM established by Malayendra Kisor Chaudhuri in 1973, is headed by his son, Arindam Chaudhuri at present. Arindam Chaudhuri did not respond to an email sent to him.
Harivansh Chaturvedi, director of Birla Institute of Management and Technology and alternate president of the Education Promotion Society of India, who is planning a signature campaign against unapproved institutions said,
"The government is not willing to act against unapproved institutions in this country. If the government wanted to crack the whip, it would have done so long back. Else, how is it possible that hundreds of institute run in India without the approval of regulatory bodies. Why can't we have fast track courts to deal with fake institutions."
