The Hindu : Supreme Court to define IIMs' autonomy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 20, 2004

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Supreme Court to define IIMs' autonomy

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI, MARCH 19. In a new development to the controversy over the reduction of the fee from Rs. 1.5 lakh to Rs. 30,000 a year in the six Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), the Supreme Court today decided to hear afresh a petition challenging the fee reduction as the Central Government has declined to give any further undertaking on ensuring "autonomy" in the IIMs.

In view of the inability expressed by the Additional Solicitor-General, Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the Ministry of Human Resource Development that no further undertaking was possible, a Bench, comprising the Chief Justice V.N. Khare, Justice S.B. Sinha and Justice S.H. Kapadia, observed: "In that case, we have to define the `autonomy' of the IIMs." Since the Bench has decided to hear afresh the petition filed by advocate Sandeep Parekh and two others, it recalled its February 27 order giving a quietus to the petition.

The petitioners, who had challenged the February 5 order of the Government, said in a fresh application that the Supreme Court, while disposing of the Public Interest Litigation, did not record the undertaking made on behalf of the Human Resource Development Ministry.

The application pointed out that in the February 27 order it was stated that the petition was being disposed of "in terms of the statement of the Additional Solicitor-General." After the order was passed, statements emanating from high Government functionaries seemed to suggest that they had not given any undertaking to the court and that all that they had said was that this direction to reduce the fees should not be construed as an interference with the autonomy of the institutions. In these circumstances, it had become necessary to clarify expressly that the matter was disposed of on the undertakings/assurances given by the Government. In the alternative, the petitioners wanted the earlier order to be recalled and the writ petition heard afresh on merits. On March 12, the court had granted a week's time to Mr. Rohatgi to take instructions from the Government.

When the matter was taken up today, Mr. Rohatgi said the Government still stood by its statement of February 27 that the reduction in the annual fee did not amount to interference in the functioning of the IIMs. No further undertaking was necessary.

Senior counsel for the petitioners, Harish Salve, suggested that the petition be heard afresh on merits. He said he might be permitted to implead the IIMs as necessary parties so that they could also be heard.

The Bench, therefore, issued notice to the Centre on the main petition and the application seeking a modification of the order and posted the case for further hearing on April 8.

The Bench also asked them to give the break-up of how the Rs. 1.5 lakh annual fee charged from every student was used, besides the extent of subsidy in the fee and the annual grant provided by the Government and to explain how much was spent on revenue and capital expenditure. The Bench asked the petitioners to give the details of the Rs. 100-crore corpus of the IIMs and their balancesheets for the last 10 years.

Meanwhile, an advocate T. Raja, filed an application on behalf of Dharminder Kumar Dua in support of the Government justifying the fee reduction. The Bench said that it would take up this also for hearing on April 8.

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