NEW DELHI: The Centre appears to have taken control of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) as it notified new norms for the appointment of the board of governors and directors in these prestigious, autonomous institutes.
The new norms make the President of India the Visitor of each IIM, giving the government the final say in the appointment of the chairperson of the board and the director. The government also changed the eligibility criteria for IIM directors. Under the new norms, applicants should have first class degrees in both Bachelor’s and Master’s, along with a PhD or an equivalent qualification from a reputed institute.
Earlier, the criteria used to be a “distinguished academic with PhD or equivalent.” There was also no mention of the required division for the degrees earlier. It may be recalled that the appointment of Dheeraj Sharma as IIM-Rohtak director was mired in controversy, as he had a second division in his Bachelor’s.
The President will now have the powers to appoint and remove directors and dissolve the boards, if need be.
Under the new scheme of things, the search-cum selection committee will present before the Visitor a list of three names of candidates being considered for the post of director. If the Visitor is not satisfied with the names proposed by the search committee, he may seek fresh recommendations from the same committee or constitute a fresh search-cum-selection committee for the purpose, the notification issued by the Centre read.
Earlier, the board was solely responsible for the appointment of the director. Also, there was no such clause for the dissolution of the board earlier. The President is the Visitor of all the central universities and IITs and appoints their vice-chancellors and directors.
The concept of a Visitor in IIMs first found a mention in the draft of the present Act released by the government in 2015. However, the IIMs had resisted the move, saying it would put a question mark on their autonomous powers. The new norms give the Centre significant powers to appoint / dissolve IIM boards.
Immense powers for govt to dissolve IIM boards
The newly notified norms give the Centre, through the President, the powers to dissolve an IIM board if the Visitor finds the board is unable to discharge its functions, is not complying with any direction given by the Visitor, or its dissolution is in public interest