New Delhi, Feb 10 (IANS): The Centre on Friday approved appointment of Directors to 10 of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet approved the appointments of the Directors to the IIMs in Bodhgaya, Sirmaur, Visakhapatnam, Tiruchirappalli, Nagpur, Sambalpur, Raipur, Rohtak, Ranchi and Bengaluru.

As per an order by the Department of Personnel & Training, Ganesan Kannabiran has been appointed as the Director of IIM Bodhgaya, Neelu Rohmetra IIM Sirmaur, Chandrasekhar Mylavarapu IIM Visakhapatnam, Bhimraya Metri IIM Tiruchirappalli, L.S. Murty IIM Nagpur, Mahadeo Prasad Jaiswal IIM sambalpur, Bharat Bhasker IIM Raipur, Dheeraj Sharma IIM Rohtak, Shailendra Singh IIM Ranchi and G. Raghuram IIM Bengaluru.

The order, however, stipulates that the appointments in the case of IIM Bodhgaya, Sirmaur, Visakhapatnam, Tiruchirappalli, Nagpur and Sambalpur, will be subject to the outcome of a writ petition pending before the Delhi High Court.

The petition has been filed by Pritam Singh opposing the government's January 12, 2016, advertisement issued in respect of the appointment of directors of various IIMs, on grounds of "discrimination".

Minister of State for Human Resource Development Mahendra Nath Pandey on February 6 had informed the Lok Sabha that the posts of director of as many as 14 of the country's 20 IIMs were lying vacant.