IIT directors appointed

The IIT Council, which met under the chairmanship of the HRD Minister Arjun Singh, set itself on a course correction by formally ratifying appointments made to the director posts of various Indian Institutes of Technology in the country.

The IIT Council, which met for the first time on Wednesday under the chairmanship of the HRD Minister Arjun Singh, set itself on a course correction by formally ratifying appointments made to the director posts of various Indian Institutes of Technology in the country.

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The meeting of the apex decision-making body of the 13 IITs — taking place after five years and first under the UPA’s tenure — comes in the wake of the Madras High Court setting aside the re-appointment of the IIT Madras director MS Ananth.

The council has formally approved the appointments of all the present directors in the seven old IITs — Bombay, Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras, Guwahati and Roorkee — which were earlier made without the council’s ratification. But Prof Ananth’s appointment is still subjected to the final decision of the Madras High Court, where his appointment was challenged.

The ministry pointed out that a decision of an earlier IIT council stating that it authorises the chairman (the Minister) to make appointments of any director, based on the recommendation of a selection committee.

Ministry officials said the director posts of IITs at Indore and in Himachal Pradesh , coming up next academic year, would be re advertised as there was no deserving candidate.

The ministry said that from now on it would take care to hold it every two years. The last meeting was held during the NDA regime in September 2003.