New Delhi: Maintaining that the current controversy involving the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) is all about the issue of autonomy to them, IIM-Ahmedabad chairman N R Narayana Murthy today (Mar 29, 2004) said that the Human Resource Development Minister M M Joshi has been "misled" and "misadvised".

"Joshi is a good man. He has been misled and misadvised. I have no doubt at all that he would realise it," he said at a book release function in New Delhi.

To a question whether IIM-A would be a party to the public interest litigation (PIL) against the fee cut filed in the Supreme Court, he said, "The IIM-A society would meet on April 2 and vote whether we should go to the court or not."

On the allegations of financial irregularities by the IIMs levelled by Joshi, Murthy said, "We have not received any such information from the minister... I believe that making such allegations without proper substantiation is not what we should be doing. I am surprised that he has made that statement."

Government had ordered a cut in fees for the IIMs from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 30,000.