Sachchida Nand Pandey, a postdoctoral fellow at IIT Bombay and an alumnus of IIT Madras is protesting in front of the Ministry of Education, against "alleged discrimination and mental harassment" of students in IITs. Pandey had previously filed a petition in the Supreme Court, seeking to implement reservations in IIT faculty recruitment.

In the photographs that Pandey had shared with EdexLive, he can be seen masked up and holding a placard saying, "Stop mental torture, stop harassment." He had also written a statement, posing a series of concerns and questions to Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, where he said that the SC is silent on "unconstitutional recruitment policy and mental harassment of students." He also accuses Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the MoE on being silent on "academic corruption, racial discrimination and harassment." He also points out the number of student suicides in IITs, the high drop out rate and lack of reservations. 

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Pandey's petition, that was filed last year, sought to create a mechanism for resolving the research harassment complaints, to constitute a committee of technical experts to review the performance of existing faculty and to cancel the appointment of non-performing faculty "due to violation of reservation norms, formation of transparent recruitment policy."