B-schools across the country can heave a sigh of relief. The Supreme Court, in a judgment delivered on March 1, stated that the All India Council for Technical Education’s (AICTE) Common Management Admission Test (CMAT) is just another MBA entrance test and not the ‘sole’ and ‘mandatory’ entrance exam for B-schools.
Supreme Court has stated that CMAT is the sixth MBA entrance test in India and that B-schools can continue to use other five nationally recognised tests namely: Common Admission Test (CAT), Management Aptitude Test (MAT), Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT), AIMS Test for Management (ATMA) and Joint Management Entrance Test (JMET).
JMET, used for admission to the B-schools run by the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), has since been scrapped. IITs would now be using CAT to admit students to their B-schools.
Responding to an application made by Education Promotion Society for India which sought clarification in public interest, a Supreme Court bench of Justice A K Patnaik and Justice Swatanter Kumar passed the order: “We clarify that as per the interim order passed by this court on 26 July, 2011, PGDM institutions may continue to admit students for 2012-13 who have taken CAT, MAT, XAT, ATMA, and JMET”. CMAT was announced by AICTE in December 2011. B-schools by this time had already frozen their admission process using CAT, XAT and other exams.
“We are much relieved that the court has ruled in favour of autonomy of B-schools to choose one amongst the five nationally recognised tests," said H. Chaturvedi, alternate president, EPSI.
Our readers will remember that MBAUniverse.com was the first media platform in the country that argued that AICTE’s CMAT was another test, and not the ‘sole’ test.
However, the Department of Technical Education (DTE) in the states of Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Chattisgarh, Nagaland and Goa have already declared their consent on using CMAT scores for admission to the B-schools in their respective states.
AICTE concluded CMAT early this week. The exam took place at 68 centres in the country. Around 70,000 students had registered for the exam that was conducted for admission to 3,000 institutes registered with the AICTE.
