Supreme court asks business schools to begin admission process

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court asked 300-odd business schools to go ahead with their admission process for the upcoming academic session without complying with a notification by the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) that sought to "curb their autonomy".

The interim ruling, an extension of an earlier order, allows the B-schools to select students who pass any of the top five admission tests rather than just the Common Admission Test (CAT), administered by the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), or the Management Aptitude Test by the All India Management Association.

The other entrance tests are Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT) conducted by XLRI, Jamshedpur; Common Management Admission test conducted by the AICTE and Graduate Management Admission Test.

"It's a huge relief as the business schools are on the verge of starting their admission process for the next academic year," said Gopal Sankaranarayanan, a lawyer who represented the Education Promotion Society of India (EPSI), an association of private educational institutes and a party to the case.

This order by the Supreme Court has protected the autonomous status of B-schools offering postgraduate diploma in management (PGDM) programmes for the academic session 2015-16.

XLRI, Jamshedpur; BIMTECH, Greater Noida; Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon; International Management Institute (IMI), New Delhi; Mudra Institute of Communication, Ahmedabad; and SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai, are among the top PGDM schools in India.