IIT Bombay Walks Back Its ChatGPT Exam Claim After a Death

IIT Bombay withdrew its account of how second-year student Sahil Wakode used ChatGPT in a mid-semester exam, three days after he died by suicide. The Powai campus then split along a second fault line: who is allowed to describe a death, and who is allowed to police a hall.

Wakode, a BTech student in Energy Science and Engineering from Yavatmal, was found dead in his hostel room on the evening of September 18, 2026. Mumbai Police have moved the case to the Crime Branch. His father, Ravindra Wakode, has named the exam invigilator and other officials in an FIR for abetment of suicide and under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

He Was Dead Hours After the Exam

Prof. Suryanarayana Doolla, the course instructor, was invigilating that paper from 11:00 to 13:00. In a note the institute later pulled, it said he saw unauthorised possession and use of a smartphone and reported it under Senate-approved procedure. The same note called that “academic malpractice.”

A first institute communication, issued on September 19, went further. It said Wakode had uploaded the question paper to ChatGPT to seek answers, that no disciplinary action was started, and that the instructor, the faculty advisor and the head of department counselled him and “assured him that the incident would not adversely affect his academic career.”

Students on the gate have a different memory of the hour after the paper. They say Doolla took Wakode out of the hall and that a semester suspension hung in the air, which is the tariff the rulebook sets for a phone. Yatish Kumar, a second-year aerospace student who lived next door to Wakode in first year and played badminton with him, said the professor took his friend outside. He also said the Disciplinary Action Committee was not imposed, and that he does not know what happened after that.

“I met him four-five days before the exam. He was the normal Sahil. Fun guy, cool guy, very happy,” Kumar said. On caste, he was blunt. “I don’t think casteism was an issue. I mean I have never experienced it.” He added that cheating is bad, but that punishment has to take a student’s mental state into account, and that the whole college misses him.

Ravindra Wakode’s FIR points the other way. He has said his son told him Doolla had harassed him for three months, including with casteist slurs. Director Shireesh Kedare has denied caste bias in this case and said caste information on students is hidden from staff. The institute has also said Wakode had not filed a complaint with its SC/ST cell.

I appeal for a thorough investigation into those who pushed him toward suicide through torture and caste discrimination. I urge the government to ensure justice for my child by terminating them from service.

Ravindra Wakode, father of Sahil Wakode

A ChatGPT Note the Institute Withdrew

On September 21 the institute posted an apology for “statements contained in our earlier communication concerning the circumstances surrounding the unfortunate demise of Sahil.” It said those details remained subject to investigation, and that it had been “inappropriate to have set out or characterised” events before they were established.

https://x.com/iitbombay/status/2101920810986524908

The walk-back met a demand students had written as an apology for defamation, aimed at a public post that put a ChatGPT cheating story next to a death. A second note, dated September 20, had gone further still, expressing “strong” solidarity with Doolla and repeating the smartphone finding. That second note was later deleted.

The same morning, IIT Bombay said Kedare had not resigned and called related reports “false.” The denial sat beside a livestream from the main gate on the night of September 20, in which the director, after about three hours with students, said he would resign on Monday and would have to follow process. An institute official, speaking after he signed the students’ paper, said discussions would continue and “due process will be followed.”

The FIR against an invigilator who reported a phone is already being read as a warning to anyone who enforces a hall. The opposite reading is that putting a ChatGPT cheating story on a dead student’s name was the second blow, and that pulling the story late does not unsay it. The apology did not close either file.

What a Phone in the Hall Can Cost

Doolla did not invent a penalty on the spot. A Senate-approved table issued in July 2026, titled “Disciplinary actions for acts of academic malpractices,” lists mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches and “AI gadgets like smart glasses” with chits and cheat sheets. For those offences the listed tariff is an FR grade and one-semester suspension.

WHAT THE JULY 2026 TABLE SETS OUT

Older invigilator guidance on the academic office site tells staff to confiscate the phone and issue a fresh answer book, then let the student finish the paper. The black box is the hours after that. Students say a suspension threat filled those hours. The institute’s first note said the opposite: counselling, and a promise that the incident would not hurt his record, with the DAC never started.

An appeal against a D-ADAC or ADAC finding can be filed once, within 10 working days, on procedural error, new evidence, or bias. None of that machinery appears to have been switched on. Wakode was dead the same evening.

Eighteen Demands Signed at the Gate

Kedare signed an 18-point charter at the main gate on the night of September 20. Students treated the signature as acceptance. The administration treated it as the start of process. The Board of Governors was due to meet on September 21. Students asked for a written reply within 24 hours and an implementation plan before September 26, and said the director, the dean of academic programmes and the dean of student affairs should resign if a core block of reforms was not done within a month.

WHAT THE CHARTER PUT ON PAPER

• Doolla: Immediate suspension, and removal of any other person found guilty after a probe.
• The public note: A public apology for what students called defamation of Sahil in the institute’s post.
• The probe: An independent panel with student and outside members, an interim report by September 30, and a public conclusion by October 15, including the emergency and hospital response.
• The families: Prompt money for four families who have lost someone in recent months, set with those families.
• The committees: Voting seats for students on academic and non-academic bodies that touch student life, with no administrative veto.
• The DAC hour: A mentor or companion, and a buddy the student chooses, told at once when malpractice is alleged, with the talk documented.
• The clinic: At least one counsellor for every 250 students, a counsellor in every hostel, and a psychiatrist on call at the campus hospital all night.
• The protest: Written assurance of no hostel, money, legal or other penalty for students who sat at the gate.

Other lines ask for a professors’ code of conduct, mental-health workshops every two months, 20 hours a week of Dean SA time with answers in 48 hours, a public concerns portal, a standing task force, and help keeping hostel wings together. An open house with the director, Dean SA, Dean AP and Wakode’s head of department was sought before September 22.

On September 21, Kedare emailed students that Doolla’s deanship was suspended with immediate effect and that any further action would wait on the probe. Students had asked for a suspension from the faculty, not only from an office. He remains a professor, and head of Energy Science and Engineering, the same department listed on his Energy Science and Engineering faculty page.

Faculty Walk for the Invigilator

The Faculty Forum, whose president is Prof. Rajkumar S. Pant, moved the other way. It said Doolla had not been suspended from service and “continues to be a member of the institute’s faculty in good standing.” It said he had only been relieved as Dean (Administrative Affairs) so an inquiry could run. He had earlier been Dean (Student Affairs), and the forum said he had built student-welfare programmes in that post and had won teaching awards decided on student feedback.

The Faculty Forum of IIT Bombay stands strongly with our colleague Prof. Suryanarayana Doolla.

Rajkumar S. Pant, President, Faculty Forum, IIT Bombay

Faculty then marched on campus in his support. The body has described the smartphone finding as academic malpractice and said Doolla reported it by the book. It has also objected to what it called false reports that damaged him before any inquiry had finished. The march and the apology landed on the same date, which is the shape of the split: students wanted a dean out of the chair, faculty wanted the invigilator protected as a colleague who did the job.

Kedare told students any further step against Doolla would follow the investigation. That leaves the professor in the classroom and in the FIR at the same time, which is an unstable place for both the hall and the probe.

Solanki’s Case Never Left the Campus

Wakode’s death is the third student death on this campus in 2026 that students have folded into the same grievance. The charter’s money clause is written for four families, not one. In February 2023, first-year student Darshan Solanki, who was from a Scheduled Caste family in Gujarat, died after falling from a hostel building. An institute committee said it did not find caste discrimination as the cause. In April 2026 a special court framed charges against fellow student Arman Khatri for abetment, criminal intimidation and SC/ST Act counts. He pleaded not guilty. That trial is the unfinished business this new FIR now sits beside.

DEATHS STUDENTS HAVE TIED TO THE CHARTER

A Rajya Sabha annex from the Education Ministry, answered on July 26, 2023, recorded 31 student deaths at the IITs across 2019 to 2023, counted as 8, 3, 4, 9 and 7. In that IIT row, five of the dead were listed as Scheduled Caste. The same reply pointed to MANODARPAN, wellness centres and SC/ST cells as the official answer to campus distress. Those tools are what students say failed them in the hall, in the hostel, and in the public note that had to be withdrawn.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The death: Wakode died on September 18, 2026, in his hostel room, hours after a mid-sem invigilated by Doolla.
• The paper trail: The institute first described a phone and a ChatGPT upload, then apologised for characterising those events before a probe.
• The office: Doolla’s deanship of Administrative Affairs was pulled on September 21; his faculty post was not.
• The police file: The Crime Branch has the case; the FIR uses abetment and the 1989 Act.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The ChatGPT claim: The institute has now said that account should not have been published as established fact.
• Caste abuse: The family alleges slurs and three months of harassment; Kedare and Kumar both say they see no caste issue here.
• A suspension threat: Students say it was made; the first institute note said he was told his record would not be hurt.
• The director’s chair: Kedare spoke of resigning; the institute says he has not.

The Senate still lists a phone or an AI gadget in an exam as an FR and a semester out. The Crime Branch now has to decide whether the hours after 13:00 on September 18 were a counselling session, a humiliation, or something the first note should never have tried to settle in public. Faculty walked for the invigilator on the same day the institute took its ChatGPT story back. The charter is signed. The penalties on the July page have not moved.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on a death, a police case and a campus dispute, and it is for information only. It is not legal advice, not a finding on abetment or caste crime, and not medical or mental-health advice. Anyone in distress should contact a qualified mental-health professional or a local suicide-prevention helpline, and anyone dealing with the FIR or the 1989 Act should consult a lawyer. Figures, posts and job titles reflect the public record as of the dates named above and may change as the Crime Branch inquiry proceeds.