The Hindu : Ministry, IIMA Society heading for confrontation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 11, 2004

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Ministry, IIMA Society heading for confrontation

By Manas Dasgupta

AHMEDABAD, MARCH 10. The Union Human Resource Development Ministry has adopted a "very aggressive posture" against the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, including threatening to dismiss the IIMA Society, and by implication its Board of Governors, as the Society seems heading for a confrontation over seeking a judicial remedy to the fees cut issue.

The "threats" were allegedly made by two representatives of the Ministry who, as ex-officio members of the Society, attended its meeting here on Tuesday to "consider the implications of the Government order" on the fees cut issue.

Briefing the media here today on the meeting, four members of the Society, Prafull Anubhai, Rajesh Mehta and B.H. Jajoo, donor members, and Anil Bakeri, a Government nominee, said the meeting was adjourned without taking a final decision on going to court on the fees cut issue after the "unwarranted remarks" made by the Government representatives.

The two Government representatives, V.S. Pandey, Joint Secretary in the Union HRD Ministry, and V.K. Pipersenia, Financial Adviser to the Ministry, also warned the Society members of "dire consequences" if they went ahead with adopting a resolution seeking a judicial remedy, which they viewed as a direct "confrontation" with the Government.

Mr. Anubhai said the two representatives told the members that the Government had "wide and far-reaching powers'' and that it could supersede or dismiss the Society if it took any legal recourse. Claiming that the powers to decide the fees structure was vested in the Government, they also viewed the past increases in fees by the IIMA as "illegal" as no bye-laws were framed and threatened that the Government could ask the Society to deposit all these hiked fees in the last 40 years with the Government.

The representatives even warned of "action" against the IIMA Director, Bakul Dholakia, for keeping the Board of Governors and the Society "not well-informed" about the "Government's thinking on this issue." The allegation, however, was denied by Prof. Dholakia, who was present at the meeting, and Mr. Anubhai claimed that the members present also disagreed with this view and reiterated their full confidence in the Director and the Board of Governors.

The meeting reached a flashpoint when most of the members expressed the view that since the Society and the Central Government differed on the interpretation of the IIMA constitution on the authority to revise the fees structure, the best course would be to get the matter "judicially settled." As a resolution to this effect was moved for consideration, the two HRD Ministry representatives "took a very aggressive and threatening stand and warned the Society members of dire consequences," Mr. Anubhai said in a signed written statement.

Many members, he said, were "upset" by such "explicit threats and unwarranted remarks" and decided to adjourn the meeting to discuss the issue later in a "more conducive environment."

The IIMA was set up by the Society with the Central Government and the Gujarat Government as the two other founding members.

The 154-member IIMA Society has 133 donor members including four representatives of the centre and all the 21 members of the Board of Governors are also its ex-officio members.

The HRD Ministry has the powers to nominate four representatives on the board and four others representing various fields connected with management.

Mr. Anubhai said that though only about 30 members were present at Tuesday's meeting, he and other members were in touch with those who could not attend the meeting and that "most of them" had expressed the opinion that seeking judicial remedy would be the best recourse.

He said that all these years, the "right" to decide the fees structure had been "judiciously exercised" by the Society. All these years, the Government representatives on the board and the Society had been party to the decisions to raise the fees and wondered why there was a sudden change in the Government's stand.

He, however, said the Society would not be a party to the on-going legal battle in the Supreme Court in which the petitioners had sought a Government "undertaking" not to interfere with the autonomy of the IIMs beyond the fees cut issue.

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