'Don't condone cheating, stand with professor': IIT-Bombay students on why they wanted Doolla relieved of duties

Student representatives from IIT-Bombay issued a statement on Monday regarding the death of a second-year BTech student and their demand for the dean of administrative affairs, Prof Suryanarayana Doolla, to be removed from his duties. While the students did not condone academic dishonesty, they believed that the events leading up to the student's suicide needed to be addressed.

The statement read, "The protest initiated by students was not intended to justify academic misconduct. It was a collective effort to raise concerns about systemic issues that have existed for some time and to seek meaningful and strong institutional reforms so that no student has to face circumstances of this nature again…." The student who took their own life was alleged to have used a mobile phone to access ChatGPT during a mid-semester exam.

Prof Doolla was suspended as IIT-Bombay's dean of administrative affairs on Monday. However, student representatives expressed their support for the professor, stating, "Our demand was that he be relieved of his administrative duties as Dean of Administrative Affairs during the pendency of the investigation, as a precautionary measure to ensure that the investigation remains completely independent and cannot be influenced in any manner."

The students also emphasized that the concerns arising from the student's death should be handled within the institute and not used as a platform for external political interests or narratives.