heard of this HC judgement?

[arviyon]

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/t...mp;prd=th&

hi all

wonder whats the implication of this judgement on the iims gd/interview process?

[arviyon]

Second process selection in BIM not in accordance with law: High Court

By Our Staff Reporter



CHENNAI, DEC. 11. A "second process of selection" adopted by the Bharathidasan Institute of Management (BIM) for its Master of Business Administration (MBA) course, in addition to the common all-India entrance tests, is not in accordance with law, the Madras High Court has ruled.

"The procedure of admitting students to MBA course by calling them to undergo the second process of selection, including a group discussion and personal interview, can never be given the seal of approval by this court," said Justice F.M. Ibrahim Kalifulla, on a writ petition filed by K. Srinivasan.

The Judge further said: "It is crystal clear that selection of candidates to professional courses can be made only based on a common merit test held for all professional institutions. Such test must be held by the consortium of private institutions or by the State body. Apart from testing a candidate's merit in a common entrance test, there would be no scope for any institution to hold any other different test for admission of students to different professional courses, including MBA. Any other view would run contrary to the dictum of the Supreme Court. It cannot be permitted to be made."

List not quashed


Mr. Justice Kalifulla, however, did not accede to the petitioner's prayer that the entire selection list be quashed. Setting at naught the entire selection at this stage, when the second semester itself was coming to an end, would "seriously affect the interest of several students," he said, adding, "it would be wholly inappropriate even to venture any such attempt at this stage. It would be wholly unjustified if the selection of all candidates is to be upset, at this stage, especially in the absence of all those selected candidates being given any opportunity of hearing in this writ petition. It will not be prudent for this court to upset the selection merely on the ground that the BIM adopted a second process of selection after short-listing candidates based on the all-India level common entrance test conducted by the Association of Indian Management Schools."

The petitioner alleged that the BIM had resorted to favouritism by admitting candidates sponsored by the public sector undertaking, BHEL. Admitting that the BIM reserved five out of 60 seats for BHEL-sponsored candidates, the BIM said the public sector undertaking had contributed a lot to the infrastructure development of the institution and added that merit was accorded due importance for the five students as well. However, Mr. Justice Kalifulla said: "It will have to be held that such a selection would again be contrary to the selection procedure prescribed by the Supreme Court."

Though the Judge declared that the "selection process adopted by the BIM in respect of MBA course for 2004-06 was not in consonance with the selection process prescribed by the Supreme Court," he said the petitioner-candidate could not be ordered admitted in the middle of the academic year.





© Copyright 2000 - 2004 The Hindu

[arviyon]

sorry for bombarding u all with such lengthy posts but here is a mail from the director of BIM regarding the issue.


Dear Alumni

The Hindu dated 12th December 2004 (Chennai Edition) and 13th December
2004 (Trichy Edition) has carried a News items with a caption "Second
Process Selection in BIM not in accordance with law: High Court". Many of
you would have been disturbed by the caption. I am writing this mail to
make the issue clear. If you go through the Judgement (I will make a copy
of the judgement available in our website
http://www.bim.edu/general/hcj.htm), it will be evident that Honourable
High Court does not say 'BIM's Group Discussion and Personal Interview
process is unlawful' but 'Group Discussion / Personal Interview in MBA
Selection Process' is unlawful. This is an observation applicable to all
business schools in the country including IIM's. However, the caption of
the news item gives a misleading picture of the judgement. I wish to make
the record straight through this mail.

The summary of the Judgement is that no B-School in the country can have
Group Discussion and Personal Interview as part of their Selection Process
for MBA Admissions. This Judgement is applicable to all business schools
in the country and not just BIM. Because the applicability of Islamic
Academy case to business schools is put to test for the first time in BIM's
case and this interpretation by Madras High court will hold good till it is
modified by Supreme Court through another future judgment or
interpretation. This has serious implications for the future of Management
Education in the Country. The corporate recruiters who determine the
success or failure of B-Schools do not recruit MBA graduates based on
Admission Test alone. Personality, Communication skills, and team skills
are vital ingredients that corporate recruiters look for in a potential
future manager. They test these skills only through Group Discussion and
Personal Interview. Hence it becomes imperative on the part of the
B-Schools also to follow a similar procedure to admit students into an MBA
Programme.

The Islamic Academy case, which has formed the basis for the Judgement of
the Honb'le High Court, prescribes a common Admission Test for Admissions
to Professional Colleges / Technical Institutions in the country with an
intention to reduce undue burden on the student community. This judgement
does not consider MBA as a special stream which requires a different
testing procedure. MBA is not just about education for knowledge sake but
education for a career. If the students do not see any benefit in the GD/PI
process, this system would not have survived so long. Admission Test, at
the most can serve only as a filtering mechanism and not as a selection
mechanism. Because we do not have any national test which has been
empirically validated based on historical data. It is quite possible that
if we run a correlation among all the 5 national tests, we might end up
with a very low or insignificant correlation strength. Hence, GD and PI is
needed for MBA selection process. Hon'ble Judges in the Islamic academy
case might not have considered MBA as a different stream, because the group
of writ petitions based on which the Judgement was given were mainly
engineering colleges and medical colleges. So, no wonder that MBA stream
did not get an opportunity to explain to the Learned Judges about the MBA
program, its process and its final outcome. You may ask the question "why
bim in the news?". Its because ours is the first litigation in the whole
country relating to Management Admissions to come up before a High Court.
We are the first one to bell the cat. So our name appears in the news item.

We are seeking clarification on this issue through Supreme Court, and we
will present our point that Group Discussion and Personal Interview are not
unlawful.

In this situation I request all our alumni to give this clarification to
anyone who contacts u in this regard help our Institute.

Thanking you and with warm regards,

Yours sincerely,
M. SANKARAN
Director/BIM
M:09842429678
O:0431 2520472 (Direct)
alternate email id:director@bim.edu

[numinousdivine]

this case is not going to have ne implication on selection process for iims.if et al it extends to iims...then under provisions of ipc iims can always go for a caveat and stay order.

[arviyon]

note the point the director makes:according to him,the judgement was not specifically directed against the BIM selection process;the court apparently holds the the second level selection process itself illegal.

[RAHUL ABRAHAM MAMMAN]

I feel the lawyers of the various MBA institutes will easily be able to make the judges understand that MBA is diff from MBBS or Engineering where Ppl skills though important is not everything ..........but in MBA communication is a big thing...so no point having a 170 IQ guy who does nt talk ..rather get hold of a 135-140 IQ guy who can gel with ppl and make them understand......So MBA is just not about aptitude..and the lawyers..with the necessary arguments should be able to convince any rational judge...

[fragileninja]

Infact, filhaal to we dont even need to give it a thought... Decision is wrt to BIM selection process. And a separate writ petition needs to be filed for the IIM's. Moreover, this writ was inspired by specific preference given by BIM management to sponsored candidates... I dont think there is any such problem with the IIM's...

So, chill out guys!!!

[QuintEssence]

actually the iim's and other mba insti's needn't worry. a judjement by the high cort in a particular case is not binding on them ...that is until the supreme court takes a suo moto acknowledgement of the issue and gives a judgement.then only will they have to face the heat.

[arviyon]

i dont think some of the points made in the previous posts holds good:
a.iims wld not be affected by a HC judgement.May I know why?Any judgement by a HC is valid all over india (maybe except J&K).for eg.take the judgement against bandhs.I think the relevant judgement was passed by the kerala HC,but became applicable all over india.
b.the other point reg the judgement being applicable only against BIM is definitely not true.Even a cursory look at the verdict wld show that the court has held the second level selection process per se illegal,not specifically the BIM process.Thats also the point the BIM director makes in his mail.The point is,tommorow,someone else cld file a case against the iims and any court wld most likely rule in favor of the appelant citing the precednt of the current case.
c.I do agree the iims wld hire a the best lawyers and chances are the verdict wld get overturned.And it stands to common sense too that it shd be so.BUt the fact is that till that happens,the current process wld be void under law:even if they send out the call letters now,i bet it wld hv a clause saying the the selection process is valid subject to the approval of the SC!!