With the Supreme Court upholding the Union government's decision to cut the fee of the Indian Institutes of Management , the IIMs are now free to approach the apex court on the issue of autonomy.

The IIMs will now decide on whether to adopt the legal route or not, said Sandeep Parekh, who was one of the petitioners of the PIL that challenged the government decision.

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In Ahmedabad to attend a seminar on 'Dematerialisation: Investors Concerns' organised by Consumer Education and Research Society on Sunday, Parekh said that the SC ruling clearly means that the financial autonomy of the IIMs has gone, but that they will have operational and functional autonomy.

"I think that with the Supreme Court having disposed off the PIL, IIMs will now be free to approach the court on the autonomy issue. But since the government has undertaken to pay for the shortfall, it will have to pay for the fees as well as the regular free funds that are being given," Parekh said.

He added that this would mean an additional burden of paying around Rs 120,000 for each of the 1,000-odd students who are admitted to the six IIMs.

The autonomy of IIMs' has several components like the size of the corpus, the faculty-student ratio, the ability to take up consulting assignments and the common admission test.