The Centre has set the ball rolling for a Visitorial inquiry against IIM Rohtak director Dheeraj Sharma, the first such action after amendments to the IIM Act in 2023 gave the Education Ministry greater control over the country’s premier business schools. The Ministry has sought the approval of President Droupadi Murmu (in her capacity as the Visitor of IIMs) to probe if Sharma lacked the educational qualification required for appointment as the director of IIM Rohtak in 2017, The Sunday Express has learned. It is awaiting approval from Rashtrapati Bhavan, sources said. The move comes almost three years after the Ministry first admitted in the Punjab and Haryana High Court that Sharma had allegedly “misrepresented” his credentials, leading to his illegal appointment. According to the Ministry, a first-class Bachelor's degree was the prerequisite for appointment to the post, but Sharma only had a second division at the undergraduate level. The Ministry’s admission in 2022, however, came only after Sharma completed his five-year term that year. He was reappointed to a second term in the same year, though the decision was made by the Board of Governors under the IIM Act and not the government. His current tenure is set to end in 2027. A Visitorial inquiry is ordered by the President, who, as the Visitor, holds the highest decision-making authority over majority of centrally run institutions. In August 2023, the government amended the Indian Institutes of Management Act, 2017 to make the President the Visitor of IIMs. The change empowers the President to make key appointments, audit institutions, and conduct inquiries — powers previously held by the Board of Governors (BoG). The government now acts through the Visitor, the President of India, in matters concerning IIMs. The amended IIM Act empowers the government, through the President, to even dismiss an IIM director. The Indian Express had, in September 2021, first flagged this alleged irregularity regarding Sharma’s appointment and reported that he did not provide his undergraduate degree to the Ministry despite three letters seeking the same. The proposed visitorial inquiry into his alleged lack of educational qualification is just one of many fronts the government has opened against Sharma. However, none of these has led to any concrete action against him to date as, under the 2017 IIM Act, the institute was accountable to its BoG and not the government. After admitting in the Punjab and Haryana High Court that his appointment was illegal, the Ministry issued him a showcause notice asking why it shouldn't initiate administrative and legal action against him for abusing his position, "concealing" his Bachelor's degree, and bringing disrepute to an institute of national importance. The notice accused him of committing an act of moral turpitude and acquiring financial interests as IIM director against public interest. Sharma has challenged this notice in court, arguing that the government "lacks jurisdiction" since the institute's Board of Governors is the appointing authority. That apart, as first reported by The Indian Express on September 5, 2024, the Ministry has also written to IIM Rohtak flagging objections of its Internal Audit Wing (IAW) regarding a variable pay of Rs 3.2 crore paid by the institute to Sharma, for three years — 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21. The IAW found that the procedure adopted by the institute for the payment of variable pay is “void” and that the amount paid is significantly more than Sharma’s fixed salary, which goes against “financial prudence”. The IAW emphasised that “propriety of any system allows variable pay to be a percentage of a person’s total emoluments”, and not 100% or 200%. “In this case, the variable pay is more than 200% of the Director’s total emoluments,” the IAW noted in its report to the Ministry. The institute has maintained that the variable pay paid to Sharma was done as per the IIM Act and paid only after IIM Rohtak’s Regulations under the IIM Act and Rules were notified. In an earlier response to The Indian Express, the institute denied that there was an inquiry conducted by the Education Ministry related to Sharma’s variable pay. “The payment of variable pay for the year 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21 was approved by the board with complete consensus of all the attendee board members (more than 10 members). The information related to the variable pay to the Director, IIM Rohtak, was also shared with the ministry via email nearly one-and-a-half years ago. As such, there is no violation of any kind,” the institute’s secretary to the BoG had told The Indian Express in an email.
