The Right to Information (RTI) Act is not another law which results in cases hanging around in court rooms for years without any action coming through. In a major development, the Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Delhi has revealed the marks breakup for the entire batch of students admitted to the institute in 2008. Prof JK Mitra, the institute’s Dean, has been fined Rs 25,000 for not revealing the information in time specified by the RTI Act. Also, the admissions of the entire batch of students admitted to the institute in 2008 remains provisional till date.

A fine of Rs 25,000 is the maximum penalty which is possible under the RTI Act. This amount will be deducted from the Dean’s salary from August to November of this year. Prof Mitra has said that marks breakup could not be provided till now because of the provisional admissions status of the batch of 2008-10. The admission status of the student does not make a difference; the CIC believes that by using this as an excuse, the Dean was trying to use any possible excuse to escape penalty. It is also shocked that the admission of students who have been studying for over a year is yet to be confirmed. On being contacted, Prof Mitra refused to comment on this issue and said that he is still to receive a copy of the CIC ruling.

Nitesh Duhan, a student of the MBA – Management of Services (MBA-MS) had filed the RTI request on April 7, 2008. He says, “The RTI is an extremely useful tool and more students should come forward to file requests. Two lines and Rs 20 is all that one needs.”

Prof Mitra also said that the marks breakup was maintained on sheets but not entered into the system and that is why the details could not be revealed. Information does not have to be stored in a system to be revealed through RTI and the CIC has termed this excuse as being “preposterous”. The institute’s admissions committee had met on June 10, 2009 to discuss the issue of providing the marks breakup for 2008 admissions. And this meeting was held over a year after the RTI request had been filed on April 7, 2008. The CIC has said that it is extremely unfortunate that the Dean of a well known institute like FMS should blatantly defy orders by statutory bodies for a year and take action only after being threatened with a penalty.

The CIC had earlier ordered Prof Mitra to disclose the admissions process followed at the institute and appear for a showcause hearing to explain why he should not be penalized. Prof Mitra defended himself at the hearing by claiming that the implementation of the OBC quota did not allow finality in the results. According to papers submitted by Duhan, the CIC believes that Prof Mitra intentionally decided to not reveal the marks but resistant to transparency was the reason behind this and not bad intentions.

This is not the first instance of institutes revealing admissions information. IIM Bangalore had been forced to disclose its admissions criteria after  an RTI request had been filed by a visually impaired MBA aspirant. Most recently, IIM Ahmedabad has revealed that there has been a significant rise in RTI requests which have been filed regarding admissions and appointments of institute officials.

The RTI is definitely a way of obtaining crucial information from b-schools. It can help students to get a clear idea of how institutes select in their admissions process. B-schools should ideally be open about their admissions and reveal the marks breakup. It will be interesting to see if this ruling results in changes in admissions at b-schools or if students are encouraged to file more requests to know details.