The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay has clarified that it had stopped collecting the caste category information of students applying for jobs through their placement portal. The clarification came in response to a notice issued by the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) which is probing a complaint of alleged caste discrimination by institutes.
The institute accepted that it would collect the date of the caste of students to provide it to companies that would come to campus for recruitment. A complaint of caste discrimination was filed in November alleging that institutes were asking students to submit their caste category during the placement process.
As per a report published in The Indian Express, "The complaint was filed by Dheeraj Singh, Founder of Global IIT alumni Support Group which has been helping SC/ST students in the placement process. In his complaint Singh had alleged that the placement Office at IIT Bombay was directly involved in carrying out discriminatory practices against students belonging to SC backgrounds who were participating in the campus placement; by making it mandatory to fill their caste-category and category rank in JEE exams."
The NCSC had thereafter directed IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay to submit an action taken report.
Responding to NCSC, IIT Bombay noted that the institute used to collect category information of the students to share it with the PSU as they would ask for the category information. The institute's placement cell has now stopped asking for this date since 2024.
IIT Delhi had also earlier denied the charges of caste profiling of students by its placement cell.
