IIMs may not release lists on April 21

The Indian Institutes of Management may not be able to release their admission lists on the April 21 after the Supreme Court today said it would hear the government's petition on OBC quotas on April 23.

The IIMs had earlier suggested three dates to the government on which they should be allowed to release the admission lists for this academic session, April 21 being the earliest.

After today's development, IIM-Bangalore Director Prakash Apte said the IIMs were not sure what their next step would be and a decision would be taken on April 20 when the directors of the six IIMs meet in New Delhi.

A highly placed source in IIM-Ahmedabad said the IIMs would wait and watch. He said they were not going to defy the government in any way and would wait for further communication from the HRD ministry. "We are going to wait for a trigger from either the Centre or the Supreme Court. We cannot take any step on our own," he said.

The IIMs had last week suggested to the government that they be allowed to announce their first list of selected candidates without any quota for the OBCs. "We are ready to release the first list. In case the government recommends inclusion of OBCs, it can be done in the subsequent lists. We have to release the first list at the earliest to ensure that the academic session is not disturbed," Apte had said last week.

The IIMs were asked to reserve 27 per cent the seats for OBCs from this academic session.

The IIMs had decided to introduce this reservation in a phased manner, keeping 7 per cent of the seats for OBCs this year, 10 per cent the next year and 10 per cent in the 2009 academic session.

The process, however, was stalled after the Supreme Court last month put a stay on the law implementing the quota on the grounds that the government had no clear data on who comprise OBCs. The government in turn filed a review petition on the stay order.

Till a final decision is taken on releasing the admission lists, about 1350 candidates under the general category will be waiting to get a call from all the IIMs.