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Journalism of Courage
With the Supreme Court today making clear that it will only hear on April 23 the Government application seeking vacation of its stay on implementation of 27 per cent OBC reservation in institutes of higher education, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have begun moves to avert a confrontation with the Government on the issue.
IIM-Ahmedabad had earlier said the IIMs would not wait for Central directives beyond April 21 and would put out the admission list for the next session.
But The Indian Express has learnt that directors of all six IIMs have now decided to hold a meeting in New Delhi on April 20. They are also expected to explain their position to Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh.
Sources said the HRD Ministry has indicated to all six IIMs that the Government may be forced to invoke its powers — under the Memorandum of Association (MoA) with the IIMs — to prevent them from declaring the merit list on April 21.
The Government, counting on vacation of the stay order, knows it can do nothing before its petition comes up for hearing on April 23. In fact, the Government was asked by the court today to satisfy itself that its plea was not for a review of the March 29 interim order which had stayed OBC quota implementation.
Trying to get an early hearing, Solicitor General G E Vahanvati mentioned the Government’s petition before a Bench comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat and L S Panta which said the essence of the application appeared to be seeking a review of its March 29 order.
“We have seen the application. The essence of which is review. You have to first satisfy that the application is not for review of the interim order,” the Bench said. Vahanvati’s submission that implementation of the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admissions) Act from the coming academic session would not come in the way of ‘General’ category candidates did not impress the Bench.
“We will hear the application on April 23 as listed and decide on its maintainability. Prima facie it is an application for review of March 29 order,” the Bench said.
The court took a dig at the Government plea seeking clarification that the March 29 order was in the nature of advice to the Central government. “We do not give advice,” Justice Pasayat said, adding he had stopped doing it since March 21, 1989 (after he became judge).
HRD Minister Arjun Singh was not in the Capital today — he had gone to Ranchi — and Higher Education Secretary R P Agarwal is abroad for a week (he has gone to Paris for a UNESCO meeting).
The IIMs’ plan to release two lists — first, a list of candidates as per last year’s intake of 1,350 candidates and then, a second list of 157 candidates if the stay order is vacated — had not gone down well with the HRD Ministry.
IIM (Bangalore) director Prof Prakash Apte, in his letter on behalf of all IIMs, had reasoned how this was the only way to prevent disruption of the admission process and simultaneously implement 27 per cent OBC reservation.
