PhD reservations may disfavour meritorious students: IIM-A

Opposing a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking reservation in its PhD programme, the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has said that bringing its “globally-recognised” doctoral course under the ambit of quota “could be counter-productive and might also lead to injustice to other eligible meritorious students”.

The premier management institute has stated this in its affidavit filed before Gujarat HC, which is hearing a PIL seeking quota for STs, SCs, OBCs, and persons with disabilities for admission in “Doctoral Programme PhD.” The programme was previously known as the fellow programme in management (FPM).

“The reservation in PhD/FPM Course, as is sought to be enforced by the present PIL, could be counter-productive and might also lead to injustice to other eligible meritorious students. It is submitted that for a course such as this High-Level Specialisation Doctoral Course, it is in the larger interest that reservation is not provided,” IIMA’s affidavit has stated.

“...it may kindly be appreciated that neither the Constitution of India nor any other law envisages reservation for courses/programmes at high levels of specialisation. Even the candidates from reserved category, by the time they reach the stage of applying for programmes such as PhD/FPG, would have had the benefit of reservation policy in education at graduation and PG (specialisation) level courses... (sic),” IIMA has argued in its defence.

It says that the institute's stand against the quota for this particular course doesn't "breach" provisions of the Constitution. The affidavit, filed by chief administrative officer Amit Verma, also opposes the petition on the ground that the petitioner is neither a recognised body and not an aggrieved party. The PIL was filed in November 2021 by Anil H Wagde, as a member of Bengaluru-based Global IIM Alumni Network, an unregistered group, which claims to have over 200 members who are IIM graduates.

Defending its stand, IIMA has said that this course "is not like a regular programme at any University where certain seats are fixed and they are to be filled by regular tests. In contradiction to other regular courses at IIMA, there is no fixed number of seats for Ph.D/FPM course. Generally, in each area, about 2 to 3 students are admitted for PhD programmes. Many times, in certain areas, if a suitable eligible student is not available, then there are no students selected for those areas."

The institute has argued that since there is no fixed number of seats in this course, "it is an impossibility to provide for reservation of fixed seats for any category of social strata." The affidavit states that IIMA is offering this course since 1971 and so far a total of "422 students have been conferred with the Title "Fellow of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad"/PhD Degree."

"There is no discrimination in the selection of students for the said PhD/FPM course and that is solely based on the candidates fulfilling the criteria. There also, the selection being completely merit-based, there is no feasibility of providing for reservation of seats," the affidavit said.

This affidavit was filed in November 2022 and the hearing was taken up in court of Chief Justice Aravind Kumar and justice Ashutosh Shastri on Monday. During the brief hearing, the division bench refused to grant any relief to the petitioner who sought a stay on the admission process for the academic year 2023. The court was informed that January 17 was the last day for submission of application.

Responding to the petitioner's argument in favour of reservation, that new IIMs such as Bangalore, Calcutta, Indore, among others, have implemented reservation policy, the IIMA has said, "All IIMs are independent of each other and have their own policies and procedure in imparting high level of education. It is a misconception in general public that the IIMs are kind of branches of each other and thus, are required to have uniformity."