IIM Rohtak Director moves HC against govt show-cause

He was given two weeks to explain why the government should not 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.

Sharma petitioned the High Court this week to quash the notice on the ground that the government “lacks the jurisdiction” to do so as the
institute’s Board of Governors is the appointing authority.

The court held the first hearing in the matter Friday in which it did not stay the show-cause notice. Instead, it ordered that Sharma’s petition be placed before the same Bench that is hearing the legal challenge to his appointment in 2017. The petitioner who has challenged Sharma’s appointment has alleged that the Director, among other things, misrepresented his educational qualifications and is ineligible to hold the post.

Last month, the government, after initially denying any irregularity, had admitted to the High Court that Sharma was appointed head of Indian Institute of Management Rohtak in 2017 despite securing a second division at the undergraduate level. A first-class Bachelor’s degree was the prerequisite for the job. The government told the court that it is now “enquiring” how the omission and commission happened and fix
responsibility. A show-cause notice was subsequently served to Sharma on March 28.

However, this admission was made only after Sharma completed his five-year term.

And Sharma was also reappointed for a second term by the institute’s Board of Governors (BoG) on February 28 this year under the IIM Act, despite the ministry representative’s objections.

Sharma wants the show-cause notice to be set aside on the ground that the Education Ministry’s current stand on his educational qualifications is diametrically opposite to what it said in court last year. Moreover, he has said that the ministry’s stand that he did not respond to repeated requests for his degrees “is without any basis, unwarranted and incorrect”.

Sharma has claimed he e-mailed his educational degrees to the government on March 31, 2016.

“It is pertinent to note that despite taking a categorical stand in their written statement dated 01.02.2021 that due procedure was followed in the recruitment of the petitioner, only due to political pressure from opposition as well as media and general public, the respondents were forced to change their stance and put the blame on the petitioner. It is with this intention that the impugned show-cause notice has been issued to the petitioner and any reply submitted by the petitioner to the said show-cause notice will be a fate accompli for the petitioner,” Sharma’s petition states. Moreover, it adds that since his first term is already over, and hence, the show-cause notice is infructuous. But the petion doesn’t state anything on how his second class degree made him ineligible for the job.

During his term as IIM Rohtak Director, Sharma co-authored several studies including one that predicted that the Tablighi Jamaat congregation held in New Delhi in March 2020 would increase coronavirus cases “exponentially”.