New Delhi, Feb. 17: Nearly 60 candidates who had cleared this year’s CAT plan to move Delhi High Court next week claiming that they have been victimised by “sudden changes” in the admission criteria of the IIMs.

The students said that they were not called for personal interview and group discussion despite securing more than 98 percentile in CAT.

They claim that the top business schools changed the admission criteria just after the CAT results were announced on January 12.

Dipesh Kaien, who scored 99.27 percentile, said: “The original CAT advertisement only said that a candidate needs to have secured 50 per cent marks in graduation to appear in the test. It said that each IIM would follow its own admission process. But none of the IIMs disclosed their own admission criteria at the time when we were applying.

“They disclosed their weightage formula for admission after the announcement of the CAT results. We stand no chance for admission by this formula.”

The individual admission policy of each IIM seeks to give more weightage to the performance of the candidates in Class X, Class XII and graduation. Even if a student secures over 99 percentile in CAT, he may not get admission if his performances in school and college have not been good.

“I was a working executive and left the job for CAT preparations. My parents are suffering from cancer and I managed to find time to study. Now I am not getting any call from the IIMs,” Kaien said.

He said most of the 11 IIMs announced their admission criteria only last month.

“Three of the IIMs — Rohtak, Shillong and Trichy — have not even looked at CAT scores unless students obtain a cut-off mark in their undergraduate, Class X and Class XI0I performances. The IIMs in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Lucknow, Indore and Kozhikode have calculated a weighted score for each candidate, using specific weightages for Classes X, XII and undergraduate marks,” he said.

Vipul Chowla, another CAT qualifier, said nearly 60 students would move Delhi High Court next week. “We have written to the IIM directors. But we are yet to get any response,” said Chowla.

Himanshu Rai, the convener of CAT 2010, denied the claims.

“All the old IIMs had announced their individual admission policy before the candidates started registering for CAT. They had put out the criteria on their websites. These students might not have visited the websites,” he said.

He admitted that the Trichy, Raipur and Rohtak IIMs announced their admission policy “late”. “These institutes were started only last year…. After the directors were appointed, they decided the admission policy and announced them late,” he said.