IIT-B student’s parents move Bombay High Court to seek ‘fair and independent’ CBI or SIT probe into his death by suicide

Mumbai: Ravindra and Sonali Wakode, parents of

IIT Bombay student Sahil Wakod (20) who died by suicide on Sept 18, have petitioned the Bombay High Court to seek a “fair and independent investigation” either by the Central Bureau of Investigation (

CBI) or by a

Special Investigation Team (SIT) into his death and immediate preservation of evidence and protection of witnesses. In the petition, the parents alleged harassment under the Atrocities Act and said a student who had secured a seat on merit “shockingly committed suicide due to abetment by the accused… on caste-based humiliation.”

Mumbai police had lodged an FIR for abetment of suicide against IIT professor Suryanarayan Doolla.

The second-year BTech student belonged to a scheduled caste and was the only child of his parents. The parents seek that the probe be directed specifically to the abetment of suicide by actions and illegal omissions made by persons in authority at the IIT and also be monitored by a retired Bombay High Court judge. The statements of students who “suffered at the hands of the accused” be recorded before a magistrate and complete CCTV footage of the examination hall, corridors on the first and second floors, the office of the HOD and conference hall ought to be preserved.

The petition says instead of confiscating their son’s answer sheet in the exam hall on Sept 18 over an alleged infraction, and giving him a fresh answer sheet as mandated by rules, the professor took him out of the exam hall, “yelled at and berated” him outside and took him to the head of department and “forcibly kept there instead of being permitted to resume the examination”.

The same evening was their son’s last, the petition said and alleged that “proximity between humiliation, the coerced apology… and his death is direct and immediate.”

The father has also moved the special court constituted under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, seeking immediate judicial intervention over alleged harassment, public humiliation, leakage of sensitive investigative material, preservation of evidence and an independent review of the ongoing investigation into his death. Ravindra Wakode, the victim’s father and first informant, has filed the plea against the state of Maharashtra, senior Mumbai police officers, the crime branch, Powai police station, the Director General of Police, and authorities of IIT Bombay. The application says the earlier police complaint records offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the SC/ST Act, and that the investigation was later transferred to the crime branch.

A major concern raised in the plea is the alleged non-availability of page three of Sahil’s answer booklet for the examination held on Sept 18. The father says this was noticed during document verification at the crime branch office and was immediately brought to the attention of the officer present. The plea states that the issue requires “formal recording and a documented chain-of-custody inquiry.”