IIM Calcutta draft code seeks to gag dissent

Abstract

Teachers have pointed out that stakeholders in an organisation must have the right to speak against wrong policies of the authorities. IIM Calcutta has circulated among teachers a draft code of conduct that bars them from making any public criticism of any “current or recent policy or action” of the institute or the state and central governments.

The board of governors, the highest decision-making body of the B-school, has drawn up the draft that bars the institute community from making “any communication to the press, in any public utterance, any statement of fact or opinion:- which has the effect of an adverse criticism of any current or recent policy or action of the institute”. The draft says, among other things, “no member of the institute community giving such evidence shall criticise the policy or any action of the Institute or the Central Government or any State Government”.