West Bengal govt joins IIM-C battle

The debate over the autonomy of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC) took a new turn on Saturday with the Left Front ruled state government taking on the NDA-run central government on the constitution of the institute's board, which was packed with four nominees on the March 26 IIMC board meeting. The state government's position would favour the group opposed to reduction of fees.

The state government played a more assertive role at the IIMC board meeting on April 3, with its nominees accusing the central government of not abiding the rules of the memorandum of association (MoA) on nomination of central government members to the March 26 meeting. As expected, the central nominees had insisted on reduction of fees.

Referring to the March 26 board meeting, the state government alleged the induction of new nominees known to be close to Union human resources minister Murli Manohar Joshi on the IIMC board was not in accordance with the rules. According to the rules cited by the state, the central government could induct nominees only in consultation with the state government.

The state government nominees - Jawhar Sircar and Hirak Ghosh - missed the March 26 meeting but were present at April 3 meeting. Sircar said the state had written to the central government. The latter had stated in reply that it was following a line of action reportedly agreed upon three years ago.

The state government was examining the reply. Sircar indicated the state was not satisfied with the central government reply.

At the April 3 board meeting, the faculty nominees also called the last meeting invalid, alleging the induction of the central government nominees was illegal. The IIMC faculty presented legal opinion in favour of their stance and said that the induction was bad in law. In addition, it did not have the state government approval.

However, the resolution which was to be drafted by Y C Deveshwar, chairman of the board, was not tabled at the April 3 meeting, which discussed the degrees and awards to be presented to outgoing batch at the IIMC convocation which followed. Sources close to the development said the resolution was not on the agenda at the board meeting.

Deveshwar told the media after the meeting he would draft the resolution before April 8, when the Supreme Court would hear case relating to the IIMs. The board chairman said he would circulate the resolution to individual board members and that a meeting on it was not mandatory.

Deveshwar was entrusted with the task of drafting a resolution pertaining to fee cut and autonomy of the institute which would reflect the interest of all stakeholders at the March 26 board meeting.

In a parallel development, some stakeholders were reportedly close to filing a public interest litigation on the fee cut and autonomy issues.