The Supreme Court's refusal to vacate the stay on 27 per cent quota for OBCs in elite educational institutions poses a big question before IIMs and IITs: to go ahead with admission for the new academic year or not?

Meanwhile, hundreds of students wait with bated breath as the government plans to approach the Chief Justice of India and the Indian Institutes of Management seek the final communication from the HRD ministry on the issue of admissions to the country's top B-schools.

The IIMs had made it clear on Monday that they will not release the final admission lists till they receive a go-ahead from the Union Human Resource Development ministry.

This means that at least for the current academic year, there will be no increased intake in the general category as committed by the IIMs in order to make up for the seats reserved for the OBCs.

But despite the setback in the Supreme Court, the central government on Tuesday said it would to seek an early hearing on the OBC quota issue and hoped for a 'just and compassionate' decision.

Asked whether the HRD ministry would give any fresh directive to the IIMs so that they could go ahead with the admissions, Union HRD Minister Arjun Singh said: "I do not think any fresh directive is needed."

The ministry had earlier told the IIM Directors to put on hold their lists on admission till they hear from the government.

These business schools have been asked to put on hold the admission for time being, he said adding "in two to three days, I am hope, it will be clarified."

He said that all IIMs were cooperating as basically these were government institutions and not "private institutions." Government has decided on their autonomy so that their academic functioning was good. "It is not that they have become independent," he said.

Asked whether the government was planning to bring a bill to clip the wings of IIMs, he replied in the negative.

The IIM view

"We are awaiting official communication on the Supreme Court verdict from the HRD ministry. Once we receive the communication, we will decide when to release the final admission list," said Bakul Dholakia, Director, IIM-Ahmedabad. He said he had been trying to contact the directors of the other five IIMs.

"We (IIMs) will talk to each other, if not by tonight then by tomorrow, since we have generally taken such decisions together," he added.

At IIM-Bangalore, the spokesperson told Business Standard that Director Prakash Apte was likely to talk to the directors from other institutes to decide when the admission lists should be released. The director would also speak to the ministry, he said. IIM officials are hopeful that the admission list will be released in the next two to three days.

Speaking to Business Standard, Dr S P Parashar, Director, IIM-Indore, said, "Instead of announcing our lists on April 21, we waited till April 23 with hope that something would come out of the Supreme Court hearing today. But in the light of the court decision, I only expect that the HRD minstry will give us directions to go ahead with the admissions."

With the latest court order indicating that the OBC quota could be implemented at least for now, Parashar said he expected the admissions process to take place at least according to the last year's capacity.

"Our earlier strength was 180 students and we hope that the government will allow us to fill those number of seats now. The remaining can be filled as and when the issue gets a clearence," he said, a view backed by Devi Singh, Director, IIM-Lucknow. Singh said they were waiting for the government's directive.

Another crucial factor the IIMs will encounter when they sit to decide on the admission date is uniformity in decision-making in terms of how much time should a student be given for accepting the offer letter. Generally, a student gets three weeks. The period might be reduced this year.

Dholakia has said that there is a possibility that students might be given a deadline of even a week or ten days so that there is no further delay in admissions. The spokesperson at IIM-Bangalore also said that all the IIMs should agree on what should be the deadline for the acceptance of the offer.

IIT

On Monday, upbeat over the Supreme Court's refusal to vacate the stay on 27 per cent reservation for OBCs, the students of Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, who took part in the anti-quota stir, asked the Centre to 'withdraw' the legislation in this regard.

Praising the Apex Court's decision, state representative of the anti-quota Youth For Equality forum Chandarshekhar said: "It is a victory for all those who want admissions to be based on merit."

"Now the Union government should withdraw the law on reservation for Other Backward Classes in elite educational institutions," Chandrashekhar said. "We expect at least now that the government will not hold up admission process in IIMs and IITs which is seriously going to affect academic calendars in these institutes," he added.

Inputs: Business Standard, PTI & Agencies