Union Human Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi has said that the opinion of the faculty at the Indian Institutes of Management is not a concern for his ministry.

Joshi was responding to a query on why his ministry was moving ahead with the fee cut despite protests, especially from the IIM-Calcutta's faculty against its board chairman YC Deveshwar for accepting the ministry's decision.

He warned that the IIMs should not think that autonomy meant the freedom to do anything they wished.

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Joshi reiterated that the six premier business schools of the country were not under the control of their respective boards of governors, but were government institutions.

When asked why the government pleader submitted before the Supreme Court, during the hearing of the public interest litigation last Friday that five out of the six IIMs have agreed to the fee cut order, Joshi said there was nothing wrong with the submission.

He reiterated that while IIM-Ahmedabad had written a letter to the ministry seeking a dialogue on the fee cut issue, the other five IIMs had agreed to toe the ministry line on fee cut.

When it was pointed out to him that the board of governors of IIM-Bangalore had not passed a resolution on the fee cut issue till date, Joshi insisted that IIM-Bangalore would also agree to the ministry's order.

"The board of governors of IIM-Bangalore has decided to implement the fee cut and has authorised its chairman to communicate the decision to the ministry."

The chairman of IIM-Bangalore, SM Dutta, is expected to announce the decision of the board on Monday. Dutta was to announce it on Friday, but the move was deferred to Monday.