IIM-A decision on fee cut miffs petitioners

The Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad's change in stand on the issue of fee cut and autonomy has led to fissures in its relationship with the team that filed the PIL in the Supreme Court.

The petition was filed by IIM-Ahmedabad visiting faculty Sandeep Parekh and two others, including an alumni.

According to sources in the institute, IIM-Ahmedabad's change in posture is based on the assurances it received from senior leaders in the government that things would be sorted out amicably after the elections and that the Human Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi may be eased out.

On Friday, Parekh, who has been adopting a tough stand on the fee cut diktat of the human resources development ministry, charged the IIM-Ahmedabad with backtracking on its earlier stance.

That everything was not well between the IIM-A and the three litigants is evident from the fact that both the parties issued separate statements on the controversy, minutes after the Supreme Court adjourned the matter till last week of July.

A senior member of the IIM-A board and Society, requesting anonymity, said that there has been no change in stand since the controversy started, the three petitioners contended that the IIM-A had in its affidavit filed before the Supreme Court on April 13 taken strong stance by submitting transcript of the proceedings of the March 9 Society meeting wherein two ministry representatives threatened the Society members including the director of the institute, Bakul Dholakia.

But on Friday, the IIM-A counsel said before the court said that it would rather stress on talks with the ministry than depend only on the court's intervention.

"By taking this tack, the institute has send a wrong message where the arm-twisting tactics of the ministry is concerned," sources said.

Parekh told Business Standard, "We were surprised by the stand taken by IIM-A before the court on Friday as we wanted an argument based on the merits of the case, but I think IIM-A took a neutral stand."

"This is upsetting and would be so for some other institutes or their faculty members," Parekh said.

"It will harm the cause of IIM-B and the faculty council of IIM-C, which had shown much courage by going against its own chairman and issuing copies of its resolution to the media," he added.

Meanwhile, in a hurriedly issued press release, the IIM-A has said, "The contention of Sandeep Parekh, the petitioner of the PIL, while briefing the media that they were caught by surprise and that the IIM-A's stand as submitted before the Supreme Court today is different from what was stated in their affidavit is factually incorrect as the IIM-A in its affidavit filed before the court had clearly stated that: IIM-A would first have a dialogue with the government and if the dialogue fails, it would explore options of legal remedy."

A source connected with the development asked, "If dialogue could have sorted out the issues, where was the need to file a 80-page-long affidavit along with the transcript before the court by IIM-A?"

The release issued by the petitioners said that Ashok Desai, counsel appearing for the faculty members of IIM-C, supported the views of the petitioners who wanted argument on the matter.

"Harish Salve, senior counsel who appeared for the petitioners, before he could commence arguments, the counsel appearing for IIM-A said the institute had started a dialogue process with the ministry and therefore the matter should be adjourned for some time to await the outcome of this dialogue. Salve pointed out that the stand of IIM-A in court was not in line with that taken in its affidavit," the release issued by the petitioners.