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The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice on a plea seeking for following the reservations policy in the admission in research degree program and recruitment of faculty in the IITs.

A bench of Justice L Nageswara Rao, Justice BR Gavai, and Justice BV Nagarathna was hearing the Public Interest Litigation filed by Dr. Schchida Nand Pandey through Advocate on Record Ashwani Kumar Dubey.

The plea has alleged that the IITs in the process of taking admissions in the Research Program and appointment of faculty members are not following the guidelines of reservation as per the constitutional mandate.

It has further alleged that the IITs "are also not following the transparent processes for recruiting the faculty members which open up the window for non-deserving and useless candidates to enter into the IITs through connection that increased the chances of corruption, favoritism and discrimination which are creating huge effects on the internal ranking, technological growth and technological backwardness of country even after 70 years of independent."

Pandey states that the IITs are not following the reservation policy that provides the reservation to socially marginalized communities belonging to the SC (15%), ST (7.5%), and OBC (27%) categories.

The plea further pointed out that "after having such a strong cast and regional discrimination, IITs have always defended its way that the selected candidates are highly talented and international standard level. However the Respondents No.2-24 have never exposed about the standards set by the IITs for recruiting its faculty Members."

Case Title: Dr. Schchida Nand Pandey Vs. Union of India & Ors.