IIT Bombay accepts it collected category details before 2024 

MUMBAI: Following a notice from the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC), the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB), in a letter, has acknowledged that it no longer includes caste information of students on placement forms. The letter comes in response to a complaint by Dheeraj Singh, an IIT-Kanpur alumnus. It sought clarification on allegations of requiring students to disclose their caste and general rank in the Common Rank List (CRL) during placement registrations.

HT has a copy of the letter sent by the IITB registrar to NCSC.

In the letter, IITB accepted that its placement office previously collected category details to provide to Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) upon request. This practice has been discontinued from 2024. The institute clarified that when PSUs hire students for reserved positions, their personnel handle the verification of caste-related documents directly, without the placement office’s involvement.

Speaking about this response, Singh said, “IIT Bombay has admitted, in their reply, that it was indeed engaging in category profiling of all the students sitting for placements till 2023-24. It is also an open secret that several private sector recruiters continue to ask the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) category ranks during interviews, which is worrisome as students fear being rejected based on their caste or category backgrounds. The government must put an end to such discriminatory practice.”

Last month, NCSC’s notice directed the IITB and Department of Higher Education to submit an action-taken report within 15 days. Singh’s complaint, filed in November 2023, accused IIT Bombay of institutional discrimination against Scheduled Caste (SC) students. Singh claimed that the placement process enabled profiling and bias in recruitment by requiring SC candidates to disclose their caste category and JEE category rank.

Singh’s letter to the commission alleged that approximately 300 SC students faced discrimination during placements, as private sector recruiters—who are not bound by reservation policies—could use caste data to exclude candidates. He questioned why employers prioritized JEE category ranks from four years prior over students’ academic performance during their degrees, suggesting this reflected a lack of trust in IIT’s educational standards.