IIT Bombay Case Puts Modi Government’s Section 18A Under the Scanner
The death of IIT Bombay student Sahil Wakode on September 18 has developed into a far larger controversy than the examination incident that preceded it. Wakode’s parents have alleged that Professor Suryanarayana Doolla subjected their son to caste-based harassment, and Mumbai Police registered an FIR naming Doolla under provisions relating to abetment of suicide and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The investigation has since moved to the Crime Branch, and the allegations remain under investigation. IIT Bombay, meanwhile, has said that Wakode had not previously lodged a caste-discrimination complaint with either the institute administration or its SC/ST Cell.
Since then, evidence has emerged that makes the circumstances surrounding the case more complicated. CCTV footage from the examination hall reportedly shows Wakode looking at or using a mobile phone during the examination before Doolla approached him and removed his answer sheet. More significantly, a July 2024 email written by Doolla when he was IIT Bombay’s Dean of Student Affairs has resurfaced. In that communication, Doolla explicitly told students that asking classmates about their caste or admission category was inappropriate, and even discouraged questions about JEE Advanced ranks and GATE scores when those could indirectly reveal whether somebody belonged to a reserved category.
The Doolla Email Changes the Context
The email cannot establish that Doolla never discriminated against Wakode. No administrative circular can prove what happened in every subsequent private interaction between two individuals. The parents have made specific allegations about earlier caste-related remarks, and investigators have to examine those allegations independently through witnesses, messages, digital records and any other available evidence. The examination CCTV similarly establishes only what appears to have happened inside that room, not what may have occurred during previous months.
But the email cannot simply be brushed aside either. It is contemporaneous documentary evidence showing that Doolla, while occupying one of IIT Bombay’s most important student-facing positions, was publicly advocating unusually strict safeguards against even indirect identification of caste. He warned that apparently innocent questions about entrance-examination ranks could create conscious or subconscious bias. The anti-discrimination guidelines were circulated during his tenure as dean. That is plainly relevant context when assessing allegations that the same professor was simultaneously targeting a student because of caste.
How Section 18A Entered This Story
The larger issue exposed by the case concerns what happens between an allegation being made and that allegation being tested. An FIR is not a conviction and does not mean the allegations have been proved. Yet once provisions of a special criminal statute are invoked, the accused can enter a demanding legal process while investigators are still establishing the basic facts.
The original SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act dates to 1989, long before Narendra Modi became Prime Minister. But the particular procedural provision now central to this debate, Section 18A, belongs to the first Modi government. Its political and legislative parentage is clear.
In March 2018, the Supreme Court’s judgment in Subhash Kashinath Mahajan v State of Maharashtra introduced safeguards that included a preliminary inquiry in relevant cases and approval requirements for certain arrests. The Court said those measures were intended to guard against arbitrary arrests and cases that could be frivolous or motivated.
Modi Government Deliberately Reversed the Safeguards
The Modi government did not merely inherit this legal arrangement. Parliament subsequently enacted an amendment specifically designed to reverse those safeguards. Section 18A stated that no preliminary inquiry would be required for registration of an FIR and that an investigating officer would not need prior approval for an arrest considered necessary under the Act.
The government itself left little room for ambiguity about its purpose. An official Press Information Bureau statement issued when Parliament passed the amendment said Section 18A had been inserted to “nullify” the preliminary-enquiry requirement and the requirement to obtain approval before arrest. The amendment was moved through Parliament by then Union Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thaawarchand Gehlot under the Modi-led NDA government.
Responsibility for that particular legislative choice therefore rests with the Modi government. That does not mean every feature of the SC/ST Act was created by the BJP, nor does it settle whether Section 18A strikes the correct balance. It means that when the consequences of removing the 2018 safeguards are debated, the decision cannot accurately be attributed to an earlier Congress government or to the original 1989 legislation.
Protection From Atrocities and Protection of Liberty
There was a clear argument behind Parliament’s action. The concern was that forcing members of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes through an additional preliminary process before police even registered an atrocity complaint could delay enforcement and weaken protection for genuine victims. The Supreme Court later upheld the 2018 amendment, while also making clear that where a complaint does not disclose a prima facie SC/ST Act offence, the statutory restriction on anticipatory bail does not operate in the same way.
The competing civil-liberties concern is equally clear. Registration of an FIR does not automatically require arrest, and the statute itself refers to arrest “if necessary.” Nevertheless, an accused person can face an FIR under a stringent special law, investigation, substantial legal costs, professional consequences and reputational damage before a court has determined guilt. Restrictions surrounding anticipatory bail can add another layer to that burden.
That creates an important distinction. Protecting genuine victims from caste atrocities and examining whether sufficient safeguards exist against an unsupported accusation are not mutually exclusive questions. A legal system can recognise the historical seriousness of caste violence while still debating how coercive criminal procedures should operate before disputed facts have been established.
What Happens If an Allegation Ultimately Fails?
The asymmetry becomes particularly visible at the other end of the process. If investigators find evidence supporting the allegations against Doolla, the criminal process can proceed accordingly. If they do not, however, closure of a case or an eventual acquittal would not automatically prove that the parents deliberately lied. A failed prosecution and an intentionally fabricated accusation are legally different things.
That distinction is necessary, but it also means an accused person who has endured months or years of proceedings does not automatically receive compensation simply because the accusation ultimately could not be established. Nor does the original complainant automatically face prosecution. Establishing malicious or knowingly false accusations normally requires another evidentiary process.
The IIT Bombay Case Has Reopened the Section 18A Debate
The Doolla email does not decide the Sahil Wakode investigation. Neither does the CCTV footage. The Crime Branch still has to determine whether there is independent evidence supporting the family’s allegations of caste-based harassment and whether any conduct contributed criminally to Wakode’s death.
What the case does establish is why the architecture of Section 18A remains politically and legally significant. In 2018, the Modi government made a conscious legislative choice to reverse safeguards introduced by the Supreme Court because it believed those safeguards could obstruct protection for SC/ST victims. That is part of the government’s record, and the consequences of that choice are therefore legitimately part of any examination of the law today.
The unresolved question raised by cases such as IIT Bombay is not whether caste atrocities deserve punishment. It is how India balances that protection with the liberty of an accused person while allegations are still being tested. Section 18A represents one answer to that balance. The Doolla case has placed the consequences of that answer back under public scrutiny.
