Why are higher educational Institutions not afraid to take unjustified action against PG students? Examples of two IITs.

Why are higher educational Institutions not afraid to take unjustified action against PG students? Examples of two IITs.

It is an undeniable fact that IITs are biased toward UG students. UG students, when it comes to disciplinary action, get leniency. Although, there are incidences, and I know quite a few, where UG students have also been victimized. UG students face less victimization also because they do not have to deal with faculty members so much. In course work, if one does not do too bad, one would get at least a pass grade even if the faculty is angry with you for some reason. Except for B.Tech. Project, the interaction of UG students with faculty members is limited. Further analysis can be made on the differential treatment between UG and PG students, why, and how, but in this post, I will restrict to examples of victimization of PG students.

Case 1: A Ph.D. student in one IIT: The Ph.D. guide of a student (let us call him Mahesh hereafter) was also the hostel warden of the married scholar. Being a new IIT, the married scholar hostel was a rented one and was far from the Institute. It was the month of June when the wife of Mahesh came to live with him. They went directly to the hostel. The caretaker told them that the wife of Mahesh has to visit the Institute to sign in some register. Mahesh argued why such a signature could not be done at the hostel itself as it was inconvenient for his wife to go to the Institute in such hot weather. In northern states, the temperature goes as high as 48 degrees in June. The caretaker told him that he had not made such a rule; the warden had instructed him.

The student went to the warden and told him that it made no sense to ask wives to come to Institute to sign in some register when the same could be done at the hostel itself. It resulted in Professor taking this legit question on his ego. So, the Professor abruptly decided to terminate the student. Since, he could not terminate the studentship of the student without making a reason for that under the provision of that IIT. It was orchestrated in such a way that the ulterior motive of the Professor would look justified from the punitive angle. He decided to take a comprehensive examination of that student. He intentionally did not share the syllabus of that 'comprehensive examination.' The Professor set questions on a particular branch of mathematics that the student had never studied. No such mathematics course was offered for Ph.D. students of his department in that IIT. Other members of the doctoral committee did not ask any questions. Result: the student failed. There was a provision that if a Ph.D. student failed in first comprehensive examination, he could be given a second chance. However, if he/she fails a second time, he/she will be terminated from the Ph.D. program. Fearful that his Ph.D. guide would fail him a second time again, the Ph.D. student met the HoD several times and also the Dean to change his Ph.D. guide. They were reluctant to change Mahesh's Ph.D. guide but later agreed. However, this guide also repeated a similar story. He also did not tell the syllabus and the committee asked arbitrary questions. This time also Mahesh failed and was terminated. Mahesh made a detailed representation to the director of the Institute. He presented all the facts, along with the proof of how his previous Ph.D. guide had threatened him and requested for a fair and unbiased inquiry into his allegations. He also requested to provide him a chance to appear in another comprehensive exam where he should be told the syllabus of the comprehensive examination.

The director of the Institute did not respond to the representation made by Mahesh. Mahesh kept on sending reminders but no response. Mahesh finally decided to approach the hon'ble High Court of that state. The matter did not list for the first six months. When it got listed, the matter could not come up for hearing. It took eight months for the matter to come up for hearing. The Hon'ble Judge noted that the director has not yet disposed of the representation of Mahesh. The Hon'ble Judge disposed of the petition by giving direction to the director to dispose of the representation with liberty to approach the court if the decision of the director is not in favor of Mahesh. The director disposed of the representation in another month, rejecting the prayers of the Mahesh. The director passed a non-speaking order. Essentially the disputes raised by Mahesh was not looked into. So, one year passed, and all that happened was that the director rejected the prayers made by Mahesh. Mahesh was suggested to approach the court once again, but Mahesh had lost his hopes by then. He thought that it might take at least a year for the court to adjudicate the matter and what was the use of waiting till then. He then joined the industry and left the dream of a Ph.D.

Why did the hon'ble Judge not think that the director, who was not passing any order on the representation of the Mahesh, was biased? What explains that the director was not passing an order on the representation of Mahesh? Was this not dereliction of duty? In all likelihood, the director had to reject the representation of Mahesh. Why did the hon'ble Judge not think that if Mahesh needed to approach the hon'ble court again, he would have to spend a significant amount again? Therefore, the director who sided with Professors, who lacked integrity and had criminal minds, had nothing to lose by first not deciding on the representation of Mahesh and by rejecting the representation when he was forced to pass an order by the hon’ble high court. In all likelihood, if Mahesh had gone to court again and would have been reinstated by order of the court, after wasting two years of this precious time, no one would have been held accountable for the loss of two years of Mahesh. The moral of the story is that the institute authority had nothing to fear in victimizing Mahesh.

Case 2: An MTech student (let us call him Suresh) has been suspended for one year. He had completed all the formality of the M.Tech. program and was to be awarded his degree. Then based on an anonymous complaint that the student had a start-up, Institute issued a show cause notice that the M.Tech student was not allowed to run a start-up while doing his M.Tech. Interestingly, a Ph.D. student of the director is also running a start-up, and the director holds a position in that start-up, perhaps in the advisory board; I am not sure about it. Now, this student approached to the Board of Governors. No decision was passed on his representation in three months. The student approached the hon'ble high court of that state. Hon'ble has disposed off the petition after directing the BoG of the Institute to take a decision on the representation. The Hon'ble Judge did not consider why the BoG had not taken a decision for three months. I believe that a similar story will be repeated with Suresh as it happened with Mahesh.

The moral of the story is that the hon'ble courts are leaving the matter to the authorities, who are responsible for victimizing the students at the first place. The courts look after the cases only after the students are made to exhaust all the possible remedies, and in this process, students lose so much of their precious time. In a two years MTech program if one wastes almost two years in getting his case decided, the student might as well decide to silently leave.