Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday issued a notice to the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) on a plea moved by a student challenging the cancellation of his admission to its two-year post-graduate programme on technical grounds after he completed three-fourths of his course at the business school.
Notice Issued
Justice Aniruddha P Mayee issued the notice, returnable on October 21, to the IIMA and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, from where the student had completed his 5-year BTech plus MTech integrated course in 2021.
About The Case
Petitioner R Shri Vignesh’s failure to receive his degree certificates and marksheets from the IIT Madras on time due to administrative and procedural delay led to the IIMA cancelling his admission in September 2023 after he had completed the fourth trimester of the institute’s flagship programme.
The petitioner said he joined the IIT Madras in 2016 to pursue its 5-year BTech plus MTech integrated course, and completed it in June 2021. Thereafter, he got admission in the IIMA in May 2022 after securing 98.66 percentile in the Common Admission Test (CAT), he said.
Vignesh went on to complete his first trimester with good grades in September 2022, but failed to receive his marksheets and degree certificates from IIT Madras before the cut-off date set by the IIMA as part of the admission process, according to the petition.
He, therefore, sought an extension of time from the IIMA which was granted, the petitioner told the HC.
In the meantime, the petitioner completed two additional trimesters successfully. On July 28, 2023, during the fourth trimester of the PGP course, the petitioner was issued a letter by the IIMA, saying his admission was to be treated as “invalid” as he could not submit the mandatory documents within the prescribed time limit.
He told the IIMA in his reply that IIT Madras was not in a position to forward his degree certificates and marksheets due to administrative and procedural delay, and therefore the petitioner was not at fault and sought further extension of time.
The petitioner’s request dated August 11, 2023, was considered, and the IIMA granted him time till September 13, 2023, to submit his documents. Vignesh managed to finish his fourth trimester as well by that time, according to the plea.
The student’s counsel submitted that despite diligently pursuing with IIT Madras, the petitioner was unable to get the requisite documents from the IIT Madras due to their administrative and procedural delay.
By a communication dated September 14, 2023, his admission to the IIMA came to be invalidated for non-submission of documents, the counsel said.
The counsel said the petitioner thereafter tried to secure his documents from IIT Madras, and upon receiving them in July 2024, he immediately approached the IIMA seeking readmission to complete the course.
The lawyer asserted that at no given point of time his client was at fault and he cannot be blamed for the delay in submitting the requisite documents to the top business school.
