'IIM fee cut PIL on behalf of students'

Reacting to the Supreme Court's observation questioning their locus standi, the three petitioners "" Sandeep Parekh, an advocate and visiting faculty of IIM-Ahmedabad, Saikat Sen Gupta, a second year PGP student of IIM-A and Anish Mathew, an alumnus of IIM Bangalore "" who had challenged the decision of the human resources development ministry to slash the fees of IIMs said they represented the students.

"The PIL has been filed on the behalf of past, present and future students of IIMs and not the institutes themselves. We will definitely produce all related documents that the court has asked for on the next hearing date," Sen Gupta said.

"I have asked the director of IIM-Ahmedabad to provide the balance sheet of the institute for the past ten years. I will ask the other IIMs for this information too," Parekh said. He added that even IIM-A board of governors chairman N R Narayana Murthy had stated that the government's decision on fee reduction was not based on facts.

Parekh added that the petitioners were challenging the government decision on three major issues: first, the government was quoting the Supreme Court judgment on reduction on fees out of context; second, the government's decision was based on the U R Rao committee report, while Rao himself clarified that his report did not include IIMs and IITs; third, Article 5 of the Memorandum of Association of IIMs said the central government should consult the respective state governments and form a committee before reducing the fees.

"Since six IIMs are in six different states, six different committees ought to be formed before even a decision can be taken," he said.