PhD scholar continues to fight against harassment, discrimination at IITs; files fresh petition in SC

Dr Sachida Nand Pandey, a PhD graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, has decided to continue his fight against discrimination, corruption and harassment at IITs, which he has been doing for almost four years now.

While a fresh petition filed by him was listed before a Supreme Court bench on Thursday, July 18, Dr Pandey urged the apex court to assign his case to the bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud directly.

When did the fight begin?

Since 2021, the researcher has filed four writ petitions and two Public Interest Litigations (PIL) in the Supreme Court and Delhi High Court highlighting various issues in India’s premier engineering institutes like student suicides, mental harassment, no transparency in the faculty recruitment process, discrimination, corruption and violation of reservation norms.

In the most recent petition filed in the Supreme Court in March 2024, Dr Pandey wrote that both the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court have denied justice to the petitioner by staying silent on issues like academic corruption and ‘anti-Constitutional’ activities of IIT professors, directors and the Ministry of Education.

In his petition, Pandey wrote, “It is submitted that the Hon'ble Supreme Court and the Hon'ble Delhi High Court were aware of the corruption and threat of IIT Madras, Bombay and the Ministry of Education; after that, the Hon'ble judges did not take any appropriate steps. The Ministry of Education and the IIT directors provided false information, which the Supreme Court accepted (truth is truth). The Hon'ble Supreme Court failed to verify the facts, and its effects were later visible in judgments.”

“Requesting CJI bench”

Now, since March 2024, the researcher has written to the Supreme Court several times, requesting to be assigned to the bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud.

“Four years of my life have been wasted, my health has deteriorated, I had to leave my research. There is no other option than to approach the CJI now. This is the reason I did not apply to the vacation bench. I cannot summarise and prove everything that has happened in the last four years in 10 minutes in front of the SC. I will either be fined or dismissed again,” Dr Sachchida Nand Pandey told EdexLive.

In 2021, he filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking directions to the IITs to follow reservation policy in admissions in research degree programmes, transparent recruitment process, as well as other irregularities.

However, while the top court issued a notice to IITs on the reservation issue, the rest of the issues remained unaddressed, he informed.

“I was asked to approach the government and IITs directly. I tried to approach Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan several times but was not able to. I went on a protest after I did not receive any response from the authorities. Even on the SC notice, IIT did not send a response on time. It has always been a one-sided fight,” added Pandey.

The researcher also claims that his mentor at IIT Bombay, where he pursued his post-doctoral research, took two research projects worth Rs 5.28 crore, and experiment samples from him also halted his fellowship for nearly a year when he refused to share research in an unethical manner.

Pandey also highlighted that due to harassment and inappropriate behaviour by IIT faculty and mentors against researchers, many are forced to take their own lives.