Resignations of IIM Directors in Recent Years Put Institutes' Autonomy Under Scanner: Report

New Delhi: The resignation of Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Raipur director professor Ram Kumar Kakani in July this year has put the spotlight on the inconsistencies between the IIM Act and the institute’s HR policies.

With Kakani being the third director of an IIM to resign in the last five years, some academics have acknowledged that these inconsistencies have persisted for years and are seen as a key reason behind Kakani’s decision to step down, reported The New Indian Express.

Kakani, who retired on July 22 this year, much before his tenure was supposed to end in March 2027, had that said the “contradiction between the institute’s HR policies and the spirit of the IIM Act of 2017 was limiting” his professional scope, thereby hindering his work and decision-making.

Earlier, two former directors of IIM Kolkata – Anju Seth (2021) and Uttam Kumar Sarkar (2023) – had resigned over disputes with their boards.

Kakani had previously taught at IIM Kozhikode, XLRI Jamshedpur, and LLBSNAA Mussoorie and he is now the vice-chancellor of RV University, Bengaluru.

Citing faculty and senior students at IIM Raipur, The New Indian Express reported that since the enactment of the IIM Act 2017, disputes between directors and board chairpersons have increased over administrative authority.

As a result, these differences impacted the institute’s administrative autonomy and functioning, they said.

“A grave academic integrity issue involving the institute’s faculty member allegedly implicated in a forgery acted as a primary catalyst for the sudden exit of Kakani. The fraud specifically related to a doctoral student’s signature to reorder the co-authorship of a research article accepted in an A-star journal,” a source told the newspaper.

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