Denied seat, youth drags IIMA to HC

Acandidate who was turned down by the IIMA, after the personal interview round held as part of 2020-21 admissions, has approached Gujarat High Court, challenging the weightage accorded to the round in the total score. Petitioner Raghav Gupta has also sought the bifurcation of his score under the RTI Act.

After primary hearing of the case, Justice Biren Vaishnav issued a notice to the IIM-A, asking the institute to keep a Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGPM) seat vacant. The court will conduct further hearing of the case on July 6.

Gupta scored 206.86 marks in CAT 2019 examination, securing 99.95 percentile and was ranked in the top 110 students across India. As per the case details, Gupta got calls from all IIMs for the admission and he opted to apply to the IIMA.

He appeared for the personal interview round but was declared unsuccessful by the institute recently. So, he had sought the bifurcation of the total score under RTI Act but was denied the same by the institute. He then filed a plea in the high court; senior counsel Navin Pahwa and counsel Tirth Nayak appeared on his behalf. The petition filed by Gupta has mentioned that as per the latest judgment of the Supreme Court, no education institute can give personal interview round more than 15% weightage as it creates arbitrariness.

In the case of IIMA, the round is given 50% weightage while that of the CAT score is 25%, which should in fact be higher. He also submitted that after introduction of the IIM Act, 2017 it is considered as public authority and shall have to provide reply under the RTI. So, he should be provided marks of his personal interview and bifurcation of the total score, his plea stated.


"Undue weightage, contrary to the settled position of law is being given to personal interview. No details on the break-up of the score has been provided to the petitioner and by a response, the institute has refused to entertain his application under the RTI Act on the ground that break-up of score is not provided as per admission policy," the court order mentioned.

It said, "Section 33 of the IIM Act, 2017 provides that the RTI Act will be applicable to the institute. Issue notice to the respondents (IIM-A), returnable on 6.7.2020. Pending admission and hearing of the petition, one seat for admission to 2020-2021 batch of PGP course shall be kept vacant. The Registry is requested to communicate this order through E-mail and / or Fax."

Admissions Committee Chairperson Vishal Gupta said CAT score carries a weightage of 25% in the final selection to IIMA. "If a candidate performs poorly on other components such as personal interview and the writing test, then the chances to qualify for IIMA's post-graduate programme in management (PGP) go down considerably. Our admission policy is announced at the beginning of the admissions cycle as is applied uniformly for all aspirants. IIMA has a highly transparent, fair and meritocratic admission process and we reply to all RTI queries."