The controversy that surrounds Ashoke Dutta, director of the youngest IIM, the Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management (RGIIM), Shillong — refuses to die down.
It is now learnt Dutta has declined an offer to join the Kolkata board of governors of the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management (IISWBM), as an AICTE representative. His move follows protests from faculty members of IISWBM against his appointment.
“We understand our ex-director Ashoke K Dutta has been appointed member of IISWBM’s board of governors as the AICTE representative. As faculty members of IISWBM. We strongly object to the appointment of Dutta to our board. He was director of the institute for 10 years when he was responsible for gross irregularities in the institute,” reads the strongly-worded letter signed by several faculty members. When contacted, S N Ray, director of IISWBM confirmed that Dutta is not joining IISWBM.
Dutta, however, told Business Standard, “I declined to join IISWBM as member of the board because I am a pensioner of the institute and it will be conflict of interest. Also, I am a chairman of the board of management studies at AICTE and was nominated by the AICTE to be a board member of IISWBM. Frankly speaking, people will complain if they want to. Everybody has an opinion. When good work is done, there will be people objecting.”
Dutta, who was the director of IISWBM for 10 years till 2008, had been appointed as the All India Council For Technical Education (AICTE) representative by AICTE itself as a nominee this year. AICTE is the technical education regulatory body in the country. Now that Dutta is not joining ISWBM, Nitish Sengupta has been nominated as the new board member by AICTE.
The development came to light through a letter to Chittatosh Mookerjea, president, board of governors, IISWBM dated February 25, 2010, where faculty members protested against Dutta’s appointment on the grounds that his working style is ‘not conducive to academic pursuits’.
Existing faculty at IISWBM say they had problems with his functioning. Sources in the institute told Business Standard Dutta was working as the director at both IISWBM, Kolkata and IIM Shillong simultaneously for at least six months.
This is not the first time IISWBM faculty members have protested against their ex-director. In 2003, when Dutta was director of the institute, faculty members had written a detailed letter to the board of governors on their concern with “his style of functioning” at the institute. After he left in 2008, P K Misra was elected acting director for the interim period. Finally, S N Ray, the present director took over from June 2009. Ray has been with IISWBM since 2001 and at the time of his elevation to the post of director, Ray was the head of the department of MBA programme at the institute.
IISWBM runs MBA programmes divided between day and evening classes, human resource management, public system management, all certified by Calcutta University.
Other courses include retail management, sports management. The total number of full time faculty include 42 and full-time students include nearly 1,300.
