Centre introduces bill seeking power to appoint directors and chairpersons at IIMs

The Centre on Friday introduced a bill in Parliament seeking to take over the power of appointing the chairpersons and directors of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), stoking fears of dilution of the autonomy of the business schools and interference in their day-to-day affairs.

Under the IIM (Amendment) Bill, introduced in the Lok Sabha by education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the President will be the Visitor to the IIMs, like in the IITs and with similar powers.

The IIM chairperson will be nominated by the Visitor while the director will be appointed by the board of governors based on the recommendations of a search panel headed by the chairperson of the board. The search panel will have three more members, including a nominee of the Visitor. (See chart)

The education ministry provides secretarial support to the Visitor’s office on appointments, meetings and inquiries in case of the IITs and central universities, practically having a greater say in running the affairs of these institutions with the approval of the Visitor.

A similar arrangement will come into effect for the IIMs.

The Visitor will also have the power to order inquiries into the affairs of the IIMs and remove the director, something the board of governors is empowered to do now.

Also, the IIM Act provides for a coordination forum to liaise with the IIMs on common issues. The law says an eminent person selected by a search panel set up by the forum will be its chairperson. According to the amendment bill, the Visitor will nominate the chairperson of the forum.

The bill is likely to be taken up for discussion by Parliament next week.

The Modi government had in 2017 passed the first IIM Act with provisions for greater autonomy. The government brought the amendment bill after a series of instances of IIMs refusing to accept proposals of the government, sources said.

Before the IIM Act had been passed in 2017, the institutions were being governed according to the memorandum of association they signed with the government. The government used to appoint the chairpersons, directors and members of the board of governors, the top decision-making body of the institute.

After the act came into effect, the appointment of directors, chairpersons and members of the board of governors was left to the board of governors of the IIM concerned. The education ministry has one representative in the 19-member board of governors of an IIM in accordance with the law. The board appointed search panels to select directors and chairpersons, following which it approved the recommendations and appointed the institute heads.

The education ministry has disapproved of several decisions taken by the boards of governors of the IIMs. However, it could not take any step as the 2017 act gave full freedom to the institutions to run their affairs. Several IIMs are offering one-year MBA courses for working executives, which is against the University Grants Commission-prescribed two-year duration.

IIM Ahmedabad appointed as a faculty member a “former” Gujarat-cadre police officer who had arrested some cops in 2007 in connection with the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case. The central government had expressed displeasure at the appointment, but the IIM stuck to its decision citing autonomy.

The education ministry had in 2021 asked the institutions under its control, including the IIMs, to translate the existing literature in their subject domain into Indian languages. Three IIMs openly resisted the diktat while 17 others preferred to ignore it.

The Prime Minister’s Office last year asked the education ministry to draft amendments to the IIM Act, giving the government greater say in the affairs of the institutions.

“Some of the IIMs may have misused the law but the law has helped the institutions. The bill will now create the scope for the government to micromanage the functioning of the IIMs,” said a faculty member.

A former IIM director said some IIMs had implemented the 2017 law differently. For example, the regulations dealing with rules and procedures did not need the ratification of the Academic Council in some IIMs as it was considered a confidential document. However, IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore discuss the regulations in their Academic Councils.

The amendment bill seeks to include the National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), a Mumbai-based business school under the education ministry, under the IIM law. It will be renamed IIM Mumbai, taking the total number of IIMs to 21.