NCSC notice to IIT Bombay, Delhi over alleged caste discrimination during placements

NEW DELHI : Following a complaint of alleged caste-based discrimination against as many as 300 students belonging to the Scheduled Caste (SC) in IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi placements, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) has issued notices to the two IITs seeking an action taken report within 15 days.

An alumnus of IIT Kanpur and a research associate, Dheeraj Kumar Singh, filed the complaint alleging that the premier institutes are seeking students’ caste and category ranks in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advanced in the forms for the campus placements , following which the SC Commission has decided to investigate the matter.

“I would like to inform you that the placement offices in IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi are directly involved in carrying out discriminatory practices against 300 students belonging to SC backgrounds who are sitting in the campus placements of these IITs for private sector jobs. These IITs are profiling SC students for placements who have to mandatorily fill their category and category rank in JEE exams which is a blatant attempt to discriminate against such students by IIT officials,” read Kumar’s complaint to the SC commission.

Disclosure of JEE Advanced ranks

The complainant argued that students dread weeding out from private sector jobs as a result of revelation of their caste and JEE Advanced SC ranks.

Putting his point, Singh demanded withdrawal of reference to IIT students’ category during placements. “It is hereby urged that such caste-based discriminatory practices that are very common in the Placement Office of IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi must be stopped immediately and those guilty of committing, indulging and facilitating such caste discrimination be brought to legal justice and no SC students be denied fair chance to get campus job placement without any reference to category or category rank or social background that is detrimental to their chances of getting selected and later job appraisals in the private sector companies due to prevailing bias and prejudice against reservations,” he said in the complaint.

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SC, ST cells ‘doing nothing’

He sought a direction to the IITs to ensure no company forces SC students to disclose their categories in JEE Main and JEE Advanced exams unless the firms are providing reservation benefits. IIT placement cells should refrain from asking students about such details “unless specifically asked by recruiting companies for the sole purpose of giving reservation benefits”, and disclose category-wise BTech placements, he demanded.

“It will become clear there is discrimination in campus hirings due to category and category JEE rank biases inside IITs and among companies,” the IIT alumnus noted.

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He further accused SC, ST, and OBC cells in the institutes of lazying around the issue of caste-based discrimination and urged directions to the IITs “to ensure a fair play for students belonging to marginalised backgrounds, including SC students, who constitute 50% of the total students in IITs.”

The commission warned the IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi of summons in case it doesn’t receive a reply within the given deadline.