Delhi HC cancels CMAT, pvt B-schools cheer

 

In another blow to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the Delhi High Court (HC) has cancelled the common management admission test (C-MAT), administered by the AICTE. The regulator for technical education in the country has been conducting the test for the past two years. It is used for admissions to over 3,400 business schools. The test is conducted twice a year.

A division bench of the HC, led by Chief Justice NV Ramana, said AICTE did not have the authority to regulate MBA courses. The bench said MBA courses don't fall under technical education as defined in the AICTE Act.

The Federation of Association of Management of Unaided Professional Educational Institutions of India, the petitioners, had appealed to the division bench against the order of a single-judge bench that questioned the powers of the AICTE to conduct the entrance test.

"We are happy with the order. This means no more compulsory CMAT for B-schools," said GPC Nayar, president of the federation and chairman of School of Communication and Management Studies, Kerala.

The High Court in its order has relied on the Supreme Court order of April 25 in which the apex court ruled the AICTE did not have the authority to control or regulate professional colleges which are affiliated to universities. "...it is clear from the above said findings of the Supreme Court that the AICTE has no role to play either in the admission process or in subsequent monitoring of the said course..." the high court said.

Renu Bafna, chief coordinator, CMAT, AICTE, said, "There are other court decisions in the past where the court said there was no problem in AICTE conducting the entrance test. We have never said this would be the only entrance test. It is up to the state governments to decide and follow their own merit-list."

Shankar S Mantha, Chairman, AICTE had earlier told Business Standard it had never forced B-schools to accept CMAT for admissions. "The problem is, today you have over 20 management entrance exams, with a host of institutions conducting their own examination. Every exam has a prospectus that costs a minimum Rs 5,000. How many students can afford this? Besides, how many exams can I give? We will be conducting this test twice every year. We want this test to set a benchmark," said Mantha.

In the Supreme Court order issued in April, judges B S Chauhan and V Gopala Gowda ruled that though MCA was a technical course, the AICTE couldn't lay down the standards.

The court order had said, "An MBA course is not a technical course within the definition of the AICTE Act", and "an approval from the AICTE is not required for obtaining permission and running an MBA course by the appellant colleges."

The judges said the role of AICTE is advisory, which means it can prescribe uniform standards of education for affiliated members of a university by sending a note to the University Grants Commission.

The ministry of human resource development was considering to bring in an ordinance to restore AICTE's powers, but no progress has been made on this front.

Education Promotion Society for India (EPSI) said the high court order was a welcome move.

"It is vindication of our stand in the Supreme Court and elsewhere that the AICTE, being the statutory body, should confine itself only to the limited working area defined in the AICTE Act, 1987," said H Chaturvedi, Alternate President, EPSI and director, Birla Institute of Management Technology, Noida.

EPSI says it MBA tests like CAT, XAT and MAT are being conducted for the last several decades without any fiasco, and their reliability and credibility is well established.

"Regulatory bodies like UGC, AICTE and MCI should learn lessons from the recent landmark judgments of the Supreme Court and high courts. They should transform themselves from rigid bureaucratic frameworks and adopt nationwide consultation process with all stakeholders before framing any new policy," said EPSI.