Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta’s first woman Director, Anju Seth, has resigned from the post, citing a “breakdown of confidence” between her and the institution’s board of governors and faculty members, The Economic Times reported on Monday.
Seth’s resignation came almost a year before her tenure was supposed to end, and two days after she went on sick leave, leaving Dean Prashant Mishra in charge as acting director, according to The Indian Express.
In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister’s Office and the board of IIM-C, Seth said she decided to quit after facing undue interference from the institute’s chairperson, Shrikrishna Kulkarni, who she has accused of infringing on her executive powers.
She accused Kulkarni of running a smear campaign against her, of “maligning and denigrating” her publicly with the support of the board. “The board chose to draw up various resolutions alleging vague wrongdoings and condemning me without any evidence thereof while denying me the opportunity to defend my actions (which were in the best interests of the institute),” Seth alleged, according to The Economic Times.
Seth also made strong allegations against the institute’s top officials, claiming they openly breached government guidelines in matters of procurement and personnel. “During my tenure as director of IIM-C, I have become aware of numerous legacy issues related to lack of transparency or accountability, misuse of public funds, cases of abdication of responsibility, a weak financial situation with little provision for future,” she wrote.
She said that these “governance problems” had led to complaints and investigations by the Ministry of Education, Comptroller and Auditor General of India, and even the Central Vigilance Commission, which looks into governmental corruption.
Additionally, Seth said there were “serious academic and personnel issues” at the management institute, according to The Economic Times. Attempts at reform, she alleged, had been “scuttled by obstructing the functioning of Academic Council”.
“For example, there was an absence of a coordinated strategy with solid implementation plans for growth, curriculum had not been revised over decades, there existed flawed recruitment and promotion policies, wasteful resource management, weak work norms, and slow decision-making processes,” she wrote. “Unlike other IIMs and renowned universities worldwide, no Code of Conduct existed at IIM-C.”
Seth said that she was not the only one to have raised these concerns, and that many stakeholders, including faculty members, had highlighted “an illustrative list of problems and issues” with the institute’s functioning. But this “came in direct conflict with vested interests that resisted disruption of their legacy comfort levels,” she added.
Addressing Kulkarni directly, Seth wrote that while he never took “tough action to address the root cause of the governance problems” at IIM-C, he abdicated his “responsibility to support this change despite it being urgently required in the best interests”.
“Instead, you have chosen an appeasement policy with some faculty, rolling back reform attempts and attempting to downplay irregularities uncovered during my tenure,” Seth added. “Since the start of my tenure, you have assumed executive powers to diminish the role of the director and of the faculty by persistent intervention, although the post of the chairman is a non-executive part-time role”
Past tensions
Seth’s decision to quit came in the backdrop of a full-blown confrontation between her and the chairperson of IIM-C, according to The Indian Express.
Tensions first stirred in December, when over 75% the faculty at the management institute wrote to Ministry of Education Secretary Amit Khare, expressing “grave concerns about the current state of affairs at the institute”, which they said had accumulated during Seth’s tenure as director. They cited Seth’s “style of functioning that is arbitrary, discriminatory” and alleged she had “a very narrow vision”.
The matter escalated on March 4, after the board of governors at IIM-C passed a resolution against Seth and divested her of the powers to make appointments and take disciplinary action. Further, the institute even started an early search for Seth’s successor in the first week of March by advertising for it, reported The Indian Express.
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