New Delhi: The Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Management (Calcutta) has passed a resolution against the director of the institution for writing a letter to the Centre against its Chairman.
Director Anju Seth is the first woman to occupy the post in November 2018 and is due to complete her term this year. Seth and the BoG, chaired by Shrikrishna Kulkarni, have often tussled over the conduct of affairs at the institute.
According to a report on The Indian Express, this is the first-of-its-kind resolution to be passed by a IIM board following the changed to the IIM Act. In the resolution passed on February 20, the Board accused Seth of writing directly to the Centre against the Board chairman and of not collaborating with faculty. It also resolved to look into her conduct and empowered the institution’s secretary “to collect all documents pertaining to the same” and present them before it at the earliest.
While the new IIM Act lays down that a director can only be removed by the Board upon an inquiry, and after being given a reasonable opportunity of stating their view, the report said it was not clear if the resolution would pave the way for an inquiry against Seth. Neither the director and chairman responded to Express‘s queries on the developments.
A major reason for the fallout between the Board and Seth appears to be the letters she wrote to Kulkarni and the Ministry of Education (MoE) in which she accused the Chairman of infringing on her executive powers. Seth also charged that she was sidelined in the drafting of the new regulations under the IIM Act.
The Board found her writing to the Centre directly “grossly improper” and said it sought to “cause undue confusion between the Ministry and the Board through misrepresentations of facts”. It also took exception to her giving an interview to a national daily on her differences with IIM-C faculty.
The Board also accused Seth of not prioritising her work, meeting timelines of action and being unable to create an “inclusive and professional environment with faculty”. Further, it said, she failed to improve the faculty’s productivity through consultative and collaborative means.
Also read: IIM-Calcutta Faculty Letter to Education Ministry a Last-Ditch Attempt to ‘Save the B-School’
The tussle between Seth and the Board finds its origins in the note which a majority of the institute’s permanent faculty wrote to the MoE in December last year, against both, the director and the Board. The note had flagged several issues, particularly those related to faculty shortage. It was pointed out by staff that only one new one faculty member had been hired in two years despite 10 teachers having left IIM-C owing to resignation, superannuation or voluntary retirement. They said some of them also left due to “harassment”.
Another allegation mad by faculty was that their views on the new regulations were completely disregarded and that this was unlike what happened in IIM-A and IIM-B. They pointed out that the Academic Council was given just five days to provide its suggestions to the draft regulations, but its views on centralisation of powers in the Board and director were not considered.
The report had it that Seth had earlier said that the allegations were only the work of “a small group of individuals” who were against her attempts to create an atmosphere of transparency and accountability.
