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FMS admissions under scanner, CIC asks Dean to reveal process

This development has far reaching consequences for admissions at Indian b-schools with the possibility of a lot more students filing RTI requests at institutes such as the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and other b-schools which fall under the RTI Act. According to the CIC notice, FMS has also revealed that the marks for group discussion, extempore and interview are not tabulated separately. The CIC has directed the institute’s Public Information Officer (PIO) to provide details of this process stating that the marks for these three are not on record.

At FMS, a common panel of faculty members conducts the process of evaluating students in the admissions process followed after the written test. The admissions panel does maintain a worksheet in which faculty enter their observations for candidates and marks are allotted to candidates after panel members arrive at a consensus. Prof JK Mitra, Dean at FMS and the deemed PIO, declined to comment on this issue.

The RTI request was filed by a current student at the institute who had topped the FMS entrance test conducted in 2008 but had been unsuccessful in securing a seat in the coveted MBA Full Time program at the institute. Nitesh Duhan told PaGaLGuY.com, aI subsequently enrolled in the batch of 2010 of the FMS MBA a MS (Management of Services) program but wished to know my score in the interview in order to understand why I had not been selected for the full time MBA program even after being the top ranker in the entrance test.a Duhan received the PIO’s response which stated that the requested information cannot be provided and appealed to the Delhi University registrar who is the First Appelate Authority (FAA) for this case.

The CIC has ruled that the PIO must send details of the admissions process and state that separate marks are not maintained for group discussion, interview and extempore by June 15, 2009. The Commission also states in its notice, aAll officers in public authority are required to understand that they are bound to obey the laws and structures thereof. It appears that Prof JK Mitra (Dean-FMS) has taken a position to defy the orders of the FAA under RTI.a

According to the CIC notice, Prof Mitra is guilty of not responding within 30 days as per the requirement of the RTI Act. It adds that as he has not obeyed the orders of his superior officer, it raises a doubt that the denial of information may also be in bad faith. Prof Mitra is also required to appear before the commission on July 9, 2009 and explain why he should not be penalized for failing to respond as per the RTI guidelines and pay the penalty as per section 20 (1).

The RTI was filed on April 7, 2008 and the PIO had responded on May 6, 2008 and said that the details could not be furnished because athe information asked by the applicant is not made available to candidates and disclosure of the same to the appellant can be objected to by the candidates concerned.a The institute had earlier provided a copy of the merit lists for accepted and waitlisted candidates for the MBA a MS program even though the information requested by the RTI was the breakup of scores for the MBA full time program.

Duhan approached the FAA on June 3, 2008 to appeal against the PIO response and the FAA ruling on July 21, 2008 directed the institute to provide the information by July 31, 2008 so that Duhan could have the details by August 14, 2008. The process of securing the breakup of marks proved to be long with the institute only responding to Duhan on March 31, 2009 with information but these details were not in the required format. The information provided then was the marks breakup for all candidates who cleared the FMS written test conducted in 2008 and their overall score across the remaining stages of the admissions process.

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