India: High Court barred IIPM from offering an MBA

The Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM), one of the most controversial business schools in India, has suffered a severe defeat. On September 26th the Delhi High Court restrained the institute from offering MBA and BBA courses or advertising as a management and business school. The court accused IIPM for misleading students by claiming to be a business school which can award academic degrees although it is not recognized by any statutory body in India.

IIPM is not entitled to run a BBA or MBA programs or to advertise itself as conducting any course or program in management or to advertise itself as a management school or a business school, the court writes in its verdict. „IIPM and its management or officials including its dean Arindam Chaudhuri are restrained with immediate effect from using the word „MBA, BBA, management course, management school, business school or b-school“ in relation to the courses or programs being conducted by them or in relation to the representations if any made to the public at large and/or to their prospective clients, customers or students,“ the court said.

They are directed to prominently display on the website of IIPM that they are not recognized by any statutory body/authority and the status of the foreign university/institution and/or its degree or certificate in the country of its origin.

Its management/officials including its dean Mr. Arindam Chaudhuri have to upload and display prominently within one week on the website this judgment to ensure that attention of anyone visiting the said website is drawn thereto.

Public-Interest Litigation was brought in by petitioner B Mahesh Sharma, publisher of the magazine careers360, who was fighting for years against IIPMs misleading offerings. The copy of the judgement can be found here

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MBA Journal (formerly MBA Channel) has reported in 2009 and 2010 about the controversial school. In 2009 even the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) has promoted the questionable school: As part of the program „Passage to India“ the DAAD supported a program of IIPM with a German university with 80,000 euros. When a critical media coverage was no longer avoidable, the program was stopped.

2010 the Central and East European Management Development Association (CEEMAN) announced that IIPM is no longer a member which it was since 2006. Almost simultaneously, the “European division of the IIPM,” the International Management Institute (IMI) in Brussels, lost its membership with the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) in Brussels.

2009 IIPM was also claiming it cooperates with several renowned schools in Europe and the US for years – which was often false information. But although its unserious business practices were known, some renowned business schools nonetheless cooperated with the controversial Indian school. One of them was the Haas School of Business at the University of California Berkeley. Darden School of Business was another one, which did not have any concerns to work with IIPM.

For a handful of dollars, even renowned schools did cooperate with IIPM without any scruples. And there is obviously no change. On the current IIPM website are schools like Stern School of Business at the New York University, McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas in Austin, National University of Singapore and – again – Haas School with their logos. According to the IIPM website they all are “Partner Institutions for Various Global Exposures Initiatives”.

The latest from 2020: IIPM director Arindam Chaudhuri arrested for Rs 23 crore tax evasion; sent to 14-day judicial custody