IIMs willing to continue talks with Govt.

On Friday, 16th April 2004, in a sudden unexpected move, IIM-A and IIM-B submitted before the Supreme Court that they would carry on with the old fee structure of Rs 150,000 for the time being, but would also like to continue their ongoing dialogue with the HRD ministry for an amicable settlement of the fee-cut controversy. This move has also been supported by the faculty of IIM-C.

Both IIM-A and IIM-B sought deferment of hearing on the PIL saying that although they perceived the government move to infringe upon their autonomy, they would like to continue their ongoing dialogue with the government.

Hence the hearing on the PIL, filed by Sandeep Parekh and others, till last week of July was deferred by a bench comprising of Chief Justice V. N. Khare, Justice S. B. Sinha and Justice S. H. Kapadia.

Chairman of IIM-A, N. R. Narayana Murthy, has already formed a negotiating committee comprising of Jerry Rao, faculty member and chairman of Nasscom, B. H. Jajoo, faculty and board member of IIM-A, and Prof. J. R. Verma, faculty member. This committee has already began the negotiation process and has met Higher Education Secretary S. C. Tripathy in the HRD ministry.

This unexpected move has been disliked by the petitioners who had challenged the ministry's decision to reduce the fee to Rs 30,000 and had filed the PIL against it. The petitioners wanted that the Supreme Court should go into the merit of the petition and examine the HRD ministry's February 5 order directing drastic reduction in the fees. But, the court chose to accede to the request of IIMs for deferment of the hearing.

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