IIT Bombay’s Board of Governors has formed a 10-member committee to look into the circumstances surrounding the death of second-year BTech student Sahil Wakode, who died by suicide. The panel includes faculty members, students, a former vigilance officer and a psychiatrist. At the same time, Prof Suryanarayana Doolla, who has been named in the case, has been asked to go on leave.
The committee has been asked to submit its report within a week. The Board of Governors also considered the demands raised by students and is learnt to have accepted most of them, except those seeking resignations.
IIT Bombay has set up a 10-member high-level committee to probe the circumstances surrounding the death of student Sahil Wakode and asked Prof. Suryanarayana Doolla, who has been accused of abetment, to go on leave. The panel has been asked to submit its report within a week. A… pic.twitter.com/BFtTeohSlT
— IANS (@ians_india) September 23, 2026
Who is on the IIT Bombay probe panel?
The committee will be headed by Prof Ramesh Venkateswaran, chairman of the Board of Governors at IIT-Palakkad. It includes IIT Bombay faculty members Prof K Narayanan from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Prof Sandip Kumar Saha from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Prof Deepti Kalsi from the Department of Chemistry.
Prof Saha is also the convener of IIT Bombay’s SC/ST students and staff cell. Three students have also been included in the panel: general secretary (hostel affairs) Aditya Joshi, Student Mentor Programme overall coordinator Dev Arora and research scholar Devi Lal.
Retired IAS officer Vishwanath Giriraj, former institute vigilance officer Prof K G Suresh and psychiatrist Dr Harish Shetty are the other members. A senior institute official said the panel’s composition has been shared with the Education Ministry and its approval is awaited.
Faculty bodies seek due process
The developments came as faculty bodies from several IITs, including IIT Kharagpur, IIT Kanpur, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Roorkee and IIT Guwahati, expressed support for their counterparts at IIT Bombay and called for due process in the case.
Meanwhile, IIT Bombay Faculty Forum president Prof Ravindra Pant was instructed in writing not to speak to the media.
Students from the Department of Energy Science and Engineering also held a peaceful march on campus, seeking justice for Wakode while expressing support for Prof Doolla. The Faculty Forum has separately defended Doolla and said he followed institute procedures while performing his duties as an invigilator.
Wakode’s father threatens hunger strike
Wakode’s father, Ravindra Wakode, who reached Mumbai, met officers of the city Crime Branch and later told reporters that he would begin a hunger strike from Wednesday, 23rd September, if IIT Bombay officials named in the case were not arrested.
Ravindra and his wife had last met Sahil on 13th September, five days before his death. They spent the day with him on the IIT Bombay campus before returning to their home in Yavatmal the next day.
Student representatives have said their concerns should remain centred on the IIT Bombay community and the experiences of students on campus. They also cautioned against allowing outside political organisations or competing narratives to take over the issue.
In their statement, the students said they neither supported nor defended cheating “or any form of academic misconduct.” They said the protests were aimed at raising long-standing systemic concerns and seeking “meaningful and strong institutional reforms” so that no other student faces a similar situation.
Meanwhile, IIT Bombay has announced that the examinations postponed on 19th and 20th September will now be conducted on Saturday and Sunday.
