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SC verdict throws cat amongst the pigeons

By making a controversial verdict, the Supreme Court has made a whirlwind during the MBA admission season(MBA 2013-2015) this year. Supreme Court in its April 25 ruling has made it clear that the AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education) approval was not required for conducting MBA as MBA is not a technical course.

So the immediate impact of the Supreme Court verdict is that MBA colleges affiliated to Universities can run MBA courses without any permission from AICTE. At present, AICTE’s role is more significant at government universities where the council grants approvals and renewals to the programs every year, subject to the guidelines being followed. But the April 25 ruling has said the AICTE has no authority to issue any sanctions on universities and colleges affiliated to varsities on running MBA courses in India. 

“……The role of AICTE vis-à-vis universities is only advisory, recommendatory and one of providing guidance and has no authority empowering it to issue or enforce any sanctions by itself”- the SC bench of Justices B.S. Chauhan and V. Gopala Gowda said. The court verdict strongly pointed out that the role of AICTE is only to provide guidance and recommendations. 

The fate of the Common Management Admission Test (CMAT) also hangs in balance after the apex court ruling, as university-affiliated institutes’ offering MBA now need not use the AICTE owned CMAT exam anymore for admissions. So b-schools affiliated to government run universities are still not too sure about the future course of action.

Recently an AICTE-circular had not only done away with important MBA entrance exams such as XAT, ATMA or MICAT but also ascertained that only CAT, MAT or any state government conducted exams (such as the Maharashtra CET) can serve as entry points to AICTE-affiliated b-schools. But the new apex court ruling states , “The PGDM Institutions are at liberty to draw students, who have participated in the five National Level Entrance tests or State Level Entrance Examinations if any”. The five tests listed are CAT, XAT, MAT, ATMA and JMET.

Some private b-schools affiliated to universities are happy with this ruling. They were fed up with the AICTE’s high handedness over the functioning of the MBA courses for the last many years. Lately, AICTE had also made CMAT entrance test mandatory for the admission for the MBA. Many private b-school authorities think that CMA has not brought satisfactory results in their states. 

At the same time, many b-school authorities fear that the verdict will hit the quality of MBA education in the country adversely. Most of the University-affiliated-b-schools, except few of them, are run by private players. Any many of them run on lower standard of education. 

Another concern is that institutes will now have a free-reign over the conduct of the MBA programs. This might lead to the mushrooming of sub-standard MBA-programs. AICTE guidelines at least assured a minimum standard quality of education for students which can now be compromised without a direct regulator. 

But AICTE chairman S.S. Mantha has made it clear that the AICTE will file a review petition against this Supreme Court verdict. “AICTE has tried to bring in transparency in matters of recognition of technical programs run by various colleges and institutes for the last four years. And we would not like the exercise to go in vain” - he added.

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