Tuesday, July 23, 2019

Top mgmt institute was never autonomous: State - Landmark Judgement


The state government on Monday told Bombay high court that Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS) was never an autonomous institution and was never granted autonomy by the University Grants Commission.

A bench of Justices Satyaranjan Dharmadhikari and Sandeep Shinde were told by advocate general Ashutosh Kumbhakoni that the institute and Mumbai University proceeded on the footing of autonomy but had not completed the formality of getting UGC’s concurrence. The 5-year autonomy from 2014-15 expired on July11, 2019. “Unfortunately in this case, the matter was not forwarded to UGC. With this flaw, it can’t be considered autonomous,” he said. Justice Dharmadhikari remarked, “Your autonomy was no autonomy.” The AG said the matter was noticed only in January 2019, after which the Director of Technical Education wrote to JBIMS that its name is not on the list of autonomous institutions published by UGC. JBIMS was asked to clarify the position or else its admissions would be considered on a nonautonomy basis.

Kumbhakoni said a proposal for autonomy has been sent to UGC. “That is taking time. That is the reason why there is delay. Whatever happened has happened. We can’t brush it under the carpet. We want to correct it. We want to give a correct status to the institution,” he added.

The court heard a petition by 9 students from universities outside Mumbai who said because of non-renewal of autonomy, the seat matrix has changed to that of a non-autonomous institute and 70% seats are now reserved for MU students, 15% for universities outside Mumbai in Maharashtra and 15% for all-India quota. In case of autonomous institutions, seat allocation is 85% for Maharashtra and 15% on an all-India basis.

The students’ advocates Satish Talekar and Madhavi Ayyappan argued they didn’t have any idea that autonomy would expire. They said websites of JBIMS, DTE, state CET cell and university showed JBIMS is autonomous. “For the first time on July 12, CET cell’s website showed it as non-autonomous,” Talekar said. He also said admissions were to be finalised on July 9. “Their admissions would have been finalised before autonomy came to an end. Seventy percent for home university is too excessive. Why should they suffer for negligence of authorities?” he asked.

The AG justified allocation of 70% seats for MU, saying JBIMS is not a separate college but an MU department. He said SC has approved institutional preference and a home varsity could keep seats for its use. He said despite nonautonomy, national character is retained with 15% seats for all India and even global character with an extra 15% over and above for PIOs, NRIs and foreign nationals. He said JBIMS is ready to absorb the 9 petitioners in the 18 seats of the 15% international quota as 120 seats are filled. But Talekar said more students have moved court. The judges will pass an order on Tuesday.
Source | Times of India | 23rd July 2019

No comments:

Post a Comment