Section of IIT-Bombay faculty questions due process in student’s alleged exam malpractice

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Indian Institute of Technology - Bombay in Mumbai. | Photo Credit: Emmanual Yogini

Some IIT-Bombay faculty members have begun questioning whether the institute followed due process in handling the alleged examination malpractice of which it initially accused second-year B.Tech. student Sahil Wakode. The death by suicide of Wakode, a Dalit student, last week was followed by the Mumbai Police booking Professor Suryanarayana Doolla for alleged caste abuse and abetment of suicide, and the suspension of Mr. Doolla’s deanship, once again igniting public discourse on caste-based discrimination against SC, ST, and OBC students in India’s premier higher education institutes.

While IIT-Bombay has now apologised twice for putting out a statement accusing Wakode of using a mobile to allegedly cheat during an examination hours before his death, the Mumbai Police is investigating the case based on a complaint of caste discrimination from the student’s parents. However, even as student protests called for the institute to start introspecting on systemic issues that were contributing to suicides at IITs across the country, the institute’s faculty forum, claiming to represent the institute’s faculty, has come out in “strong solidarity” with Mr. Doolla.

But the faculty forum’s public defence of Mr. Doolla’s actions before investigations are completed has led to a section of the faculty at IIT-Bombay distancing themselves from this forum. IITB Professor Suryakant Waghmore’s on-record condemnation of the faculty forum’s defence of Mr. Doolla has now led to several other faculty members engaging with each other within the institute on whether due process was at all followed once Wakode was interrupted in the examination hall by Mr. Doolla on suspicion of malpractice.

According to faculty communications that Mr. Waghmore has made public in the last few days, faculty members have started questioning why Wakode was not given a fresh answer sheet after being accused of malpractice, as is the rule. Another faculty member has alleged that the Departmental Academic Disciplinary Action Committee (DA-DAC) was not constituted as per the rule. One faculty member further accused Mr. Doolla, the concerned Head of Department, and one other faculty member of trying to “console” Wakode and allegedly “extract a written confession” from him when the procedure requires that the DA-DAC be constituted first and the concerned student be given at least two working days to prepare their written statement.

One of the communications made public by Mr. Waghmore also showed a faculty member saying that the head of the faculty forum, Professor Rajkumar S. Pant, and Wakode’s HoD both spoke about having secured a written confession from the student but were reluctant to make this public in two different meetings of the faculty forum.