AICTE, UGC consulting lawyers on IIPM issue

AICTE to issue notices to state govts; says may file FIR against unapproved institutes

All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and University Grants Commission (UGC) are consulting their respective legal departments on taking  action against the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM). This follows the blockage of 73 uniform resource locators (URLs) that relate to content against the management institution.

Academic communities are also considering a signature campaign, as well as writing to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to intervene in the matter. “We want to ask why the Ministry of Human Resource Development didn’t take action against IIPM earlier and allowed thousands of students to be duped,” said the director of a Noida-based business school.

Last week, a Gwalior court had ordered various web pages be blocked after an IIPM business partner complained “defamatory material” on the institute was published on these pages.

Arindam Chaudhuri, head of IIPM, said, “With respect to UGC links, I should say UGC and AICTE are organisations full of bribe-seeking, corrupt officials where, even at the top, they have a track record of being caught red-handed and jailed. The standard of education they have created in the nation is shameful, to say the least. IIPM is proud to have no affiliation with them.”

AICTE Chairman Shankar S Mantha said, “Whatever Chaudhuri is saying is nonsense. Today, AICTE has e-governance. It is a transparent and responsible organisation. Something that happened in the past has no relevance today. It does not mean IIPM creates its own system and discounts existing ones.”

He added on AICTE’s website, it had declared all IIPM branches were unapproved.

“We are talking to our lawyers to see what legal action can be taken against IIPM,” a senior UGC official told Business Standard.

Harivansh Chaturvedi, director of Birla Institute of Management and Technology and alternate president of the Education Promotion Society of India, said UGC and AICTE should have cracked the whip on IIPM long ago. “I fail to understand how a B-school that is neither registered with AICTE nor permitted by UGC can be allowed to operate and flourish and take students for a ride,” he said.

AICTE said it would write to state governments soon on unapproved institutions operating in their respective states. “We will file an FIR (first information report) against these institutes, if need be,” Mantha said.