Joshi doesn’t wait for IIMs, says fix the guilty

It also appears that the closely guarded examination procedure will no longer be exclusively in the domain of IIMs. Once Shunglu gets to have a close look at it, the HRD ministry would have a thorough understanding of the system. Yesterday, HRD officials hardly knew anything about the CAT examination procedure.

Shunglu has been asked to ‘‘examine the circumstances that led to the leak and to see if there were any systemic failures’’. He will also have to ‘‘examine the methodology and conduct of the CAT examination and suggest measures to avoid recurrence of such incidents in future’’.

The leak thus gives some leverage to the HRD Ministry to have a better grasp of the working of the IIM. This is what the fiercely turf-conscious IIM managements were grumbling about from yesterday.

While the ministry went about in a clinical fashion and set up a committee in less than 24 hours, an informal meeting of the Board of Examiners and Admission Committee Directors held at IIM Ahmedabad today continued to maintain that it was in no way responsible and the leak had to have happened at the printing press end. ‘‘The paper cannot have been leaked in the pre- or post-printing process as security is too tight. So we have to now identify a new printing press,’’ said IIMA Director Bakul Dholakia. A formal meeting of the six admission chairpersons is scheduled in Ahmedabad tomorrow, following which a formal decision would be taken on exam cancellation. The directors of all IIMs will meet on Wednesday morning to agree to the modalities. However, while Dholakia said their first duty was towards the students and towards relieving their tension, the earliest possible date for re-examination is sometime in January as the whole process will take at least a month.

In Kandivli (East), Mumbai, the mood at the Institute for Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) office, where the papers were printed, is of shock. Phones at Director D P Sarda’s office haven’t stopped ringing since Dholakia laid the blame on the printing press’s door. A ‘‘pained’’ Sarda and his colleagues ask why the leak could not have taken place while the printed question papers were being transported to the exam centres.

‘‘Such an incident hasn’t occurred in the history of the IBPS. We’re a professional organisation typesetting entrance exam papers since 1984,’’ says a visibly perturbed Sarda. The IBPS has been printing papers for the CAT exam alone for the past decade and has ‘‘never faced charges of corruption or cheating’’, add his colleagues.

On the basis of the recommendations of the probe, the Government may decide if the single common admission test they are planning for all accredited management courses next year should be organised by it or the IIMs. Till now the CAT was for admission to the six IIMs and 30 other private management institutions. When asked about this, a senior HRD official said: ‘‘Let us see the recommendations first. It is only after we have grasped the nature of the systemic failure shall we take a final decision.’’

HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi told officials today that there would be no interference in the academic activities of the IIMs. ‘‘However,’’ he explained to bureaucrats, ‘‘since there has been an administrative failure or malpractice, there will have to be a probe.’’

Apparently the minister is all the more irked because it is he who is finally accountable to Parliament and might have to respond to embarrassing questions on the floor of both Houses in the forthcoming Winter Session.

At his end, Dholakia promised they were trying to find ways to make the system more foolproof. Vijay Chand, Head of Admissions, IIMA, added: ‘‘We will be in touch with the HRD Ministry in Delhi about the exact norms to be followed for retest.’’

While their hunt for a new printing press has also begun, credential-wise, few may better IBPS. Established in 1984, the IBPS is a semi-government body involved in printing question papers for about 250 competitive exams for entry to various financial institutions, including the Bank Probationary Officers’ exam. ‘‘Our expertise is even sought by organisations for setting entry-level question papers,’’ says an IBPS professor who refused to be named. The printing is done amidst tight security with no outsiders allowed in the press block. ‘‘We maintain secrecy throughout the CAT paper printing procedure since it’s our credibility at stake,’’ the professor further adds.

Representatives from the six IIMs personally come to pick up the CAT papers 10 days prior to the exam. Sarda says after this, ‘‘anything could happen enroute and we can’t be held responsible for that’’.

Angry at the finger-pointing at IBPS, Sarda has shot off an official protest letter to authorities at IIMA.