New Delhi: The Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) has argued that operational freedom was ingrained in the institute's DNA and objected to a public interest litigation (PIL) filed in the Gujarat High Court demanding reservation for PhD courses.
The nation's top business school said in a recent declaration submitted in response to the PIL that the IIMA continues to be an autonomous and independent institute without support from the government despite being a statutory organisation under the IIM Act, 2017.
Earlier, this week, the case was heard by a division bench consisting of Chief Justice Aravind Kumar and Justice Ashutosh Shastri.
The institute rejected reservations for its PhD programme on the grounds that it was a "super-specialized programme" and that neither the Indian Constitution nor any other statute contemplated reservations for highly specialised courses or programmes.
One Global IIM Alumni Network filed the PIL, which contests the lack of any form of discrimination in the PhD programme, formerly known as the Fellow Programme in Management.
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IIMA was established as a facility to be run by the IIMA Organization, a society established in accordance with the Societies Registration Act. IIMA was designed as a board-managed organisation that was not under the sole power of any one constituency. As a result, the operational flexibility is a fundamental component of IIMA's DNA, it stated.
The IIMA and other IIMs were designated as Institutes of National Importance under the IIM Act of 2017, which was notified on January 11, 2018, and each IIM was described as a distinct, independent, and autonomous body corporate. It is necessary to note that all IIMs controlled by the IIM Act remain independent and autonomous, under the control of their Board of Governors.
The overall superintendence, direction and control of the affairs of the institutes including the powers to frame policies/regulations lies with the BoG,” it said. Though IIMA is now a statutory body after the enactment of the IIM Act, “it continues to be an autonomous and independent institute with no funding from the government”, it said.
The BoG has comprehensive supervision, direction, and control over the business of the institutes, including the authority to create policies and regulations, it stated.
Further, it stated that IIMA continues to be an autonomous and independent institute with no funding from the government, despite the fact that it is now a statutory organisation as a result of the IIM Act.
The institute argued that by not including any reservations in its PhD programme, there was no illegality or violation of other laws or the norms of the Indian Constitution.
According to the statement, even candidates from the reserved category would profit from the reservation policy at the graduate and post-graduate level courses by the time they apply for PhD programmes.
Therefore, no additional reservations are required by law for such advanced specialisation programmes, it stated. Due to the reduced number of seats that may be available for programmes like PhD/FPM and the lack of a set number of seats, it was said that reservations of seats were also not allowed.
It added that there is no practical way to reserve seats because the selection was entirely merit-based, saying that such a reservation may be counterproductive and might cause injustice to other eligible meritorious candidates. It went on to state that neither the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act of 2016 nor the Central Education Institution (Reservation in Admission) Act of 2006 had been broken.
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