Sukanta Chaudhuri | 04 November 2024 | The Telegraph

A Dalit student, Atul Kumar, scrounged together the money for admission to IIT Dhanbad but narrowly missed the deadline for online payment, allegedly owing to a malfunctioning portal. He approached the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, the Jharkhand State Legal Services Authority and the Madras High Court (as IIT Madras was conducting the selections). Presumably he also addressed the IIT authorities. The Supreme Court finally ruled in his favour.

One is amazed that marginal relaxation of a deadline for fees should need the intervention of the Supreme Court. In the pre-tech world, the case would have been considered by the institutional head and a decision taken, very likely in the student’s favour, in minutes or at most days. IIT admissions are controlled not by individual institutes but a joint platform. Does it not provide a gateway for human (not to say humane) intervention beyond the computer portal?…

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