When Tragedy Meets Accountability: IIT Bombay and the Question of Due Process
Niraj Kumar
23rd September, 2026
The death of IIT Bombay student Sahil Wakode on September 18, 2026, has understandably caused grief, anger and intense scrutiny. Allegations of caste-based harassment, an examination incident involving alleged academic misconduct, student protests, demands for action against a faculty member, and a police investigation have since followed. The family deserves answers, allegations must be investigated seriously, and students have every right to demand accountability. But beyond the immediate controversy lies a more difficult question.
The IIT Bombay episode is not merely about one student, one professor or one institution. It raises a larger question for higher education: what happens when student distress, alleged misconduct, academic discipline, public protest and demands for immediate action collide?
Academic Integrity Is a Duty of Care
The controversy began with an examination incident in which a student was allegedly found using ChatGPT. The details remain under investigation, but the principle is simple: using unauthorised help in an examination is cheating. The tool may change, but the rule does not. An examination is meaningful only when the same rules apply to everyone.
Academic misconduct must be addressed firmly, but never at the cost of dignity. A student should not be humiliated, threatened or publicly shamed. The process should be clear, proportionate, consistent and respectful. The real question is how a student facing a serious disciplinary issue should be handled, not whether the issue should be addressed. The institution must support the student through a difficult period while making it equally clear that breaches of academic rules carry consequences. Compassion and accountability must go together.
Academic integrity is also a matter of fairness to the many students who follow the rules even when it is difficult. When misconduct is ignored in the name of sensitivity, the cost is borne by those who prepared honestly and accepted the same constraints. Enforcing rules, therefore, is not an act against students; done fairly, it is part of the institution’s responsibility to all students.
A Suicide Cannot Be Reduced to a Single Event
Suicide is rarely caused by one event. The World Health Organisation stresses that suicidal behaviour emerges from a complex interaction of psychological, social, cultural, health-related and situational factors. It is therefore unsafe to assign responsibility for a death to a single incident or individual without evidence.
This does not make preceding events irrelevant. Humiliation, discrimination, intimidation or other misconduct, if established, must have consequences. But sequence is not causation. The fact that an adverse interaction occurred before a suicide does not by itself prove that it caused the death. That conclusion must rest on evidence, not assumption.
The wider context reinforces this caution. In 2025, the Supreme Court constituted a National Task Force to examine student suicides and mental health in higher education. Its nationwide exercise drew responses from more than 12.88 lakh students and about 1.6 lakh faculty members. The scale itself tells us that student distress is not a one-person, one-event problem. Academic pressure, discrimination, isolation, family and financial difficulties, institutional culture and psychological vulnerability may all intersect.
The lesson, therefore, is not to dilute accountability, but to strengthen institutional judgement. Universities must learn to recognise distress without turning every tragedy into presumed individual guilt. That requires credible systems, clear processes, and the ability to distinguish support from blame. Many institutions are still not good enough at this.
If responsibility must rest on evidence, the same standard must apply when public anger seeks an immediate culprit.
The Right to Protest Is Not the Right to Determine Guilt
Protest is central to democracy, and student protest is an essential part of university life. Students must be free to question authority, challenge discrimination, demand better systems and seek an independent investigation. Institutions that fail to listen often recognise problems only after they become crises.
But protest is not adjudication. It can demand attention, transparency and accountability; it cannot determine guilt. Numbers do not turn an allegation into proof. The danger begins when “investigate” becomes “remove because we have already decided. If the strength of a protest begins to determine the outcome, the inquiry loses meaning. The same principle would be unacceptable if an accused student were facing an angry crowd. Due process matters most when public opinion has already reached its verdict.
There may, of course, be situations in which an institution asks a person to step aside temporarily from an administrative role while an inquiry is underway. Such a step can protect the credibility of the process, but it should not be confused with a finding of guilt. That distinction matters because interim action can easily become public punishment, especially in the age of social media. A fair process must protect the investigation without quietly deciding its conclusion in advance.
A useful, though not identical, precedent is the Supreme Court’s 2021 judgment in Geo Varghese v. State of Rajasthan. The Court held that maintaining discipline is part of a teacher’s responsibility and that ordinary reprimand cannot automatically be treated as provocation to suicide. It also made clear that repeated, deliberate harassment or unjustified insult would stand on a different footing. That distinction is crucial: legitimate discipline and abusive conduct are not the same. An inquiry exists to determine which occurred.
But premature judgement affects more than the individual accused; it also shapes how other teachers exercise authority.
Faculty Well-being Cannot Be Ignored
Student mental health rightly demands attention, but faculty well-being is often absent from the conversation. Teachers today carry academic, administrative, mentoring, research, and increasingly emotional responsibilities. A 2026 national study of 3,987 university faculty members in India found significant links among workload, sleep disruption, and burnout. Holding authority does not make teachers immune to stress, exhaustion, or psychological strain.
There is also an institutional risk. If teachers see colleagues publicly targeted before facts are established, some may conclude that the safest response is disengagement - do not confront cheating, do not challenge plagiarism, do not give candid feedback and do not get involved. That would be disastrous for universities. Teachers must remain accountable for misuse of authority, but those acting in good faith and within institutional rules also deserve protection from premature conviction. Student well-being and faculty dignity are not competing goals.
The Problem Is Larger Than “Gen Z”
It is easy to blame Gen Z for being less tolerant of criticism, failure or authority. Many teachers do see a change in how students respond to feedback and institutional discipline. But reducing the problem to one generation’s supposed fragility is too simplistic. The issue is larger than Gen Z; it is about the academic and social culture we are collectively creating.
The deeper issue is the ecosystem around today’s students. Families remain closely involved, institutions compete on student satisfaction, social media can turn a classroom dispute into a public controversy within hours, and administrations are highly sensitive to reputation. Teachers work under constant visibility, while students face intense competition, uncertain careers and relentless social comparison. This is not simply a generational problem; it is a systemic one.
Parents and educational institutions must therefore teach from an early age that discomfort, failure, correction and accountability are part of life, and unavoidable parts of adulthood. Resilience does not mean simply “toughening up,” just as mental-health support cannot mean shielding young people from every unpleasant consequence. The real task is to support them while also preparing them to face setbacks, criticism and responsibility.
The real challenge, then, is not whether universities should “surrender” to Gen Z. It is whether they can create a culture where students are heard without every demand becoming non-negotiable, teachers are accountable without being stripped of legitimate authority, and administrators seek the truth rather than the quickest person to blame.
Dignity, Discipline and Due Process
Students have every right to expect dignity, fairness and protection from humiliation, discrimination or abuse of authority. But dignity does not place anyone above discipline. Academic rules exist for a reason, and when they are violated, consequences must follow.
The same principle must apply to everyone. An allegation deserves serious investigation, neither instant dismissal nor instant acceptance. Belief, however strong, is not proof. The standard cannot change depending on whether the accused is a student or a teacher.
This is also where institutions must resist symbolic action. In moments of pressure, removing one individual can create the appearance of decisiveness. But complex problems are rarely solved by identifying a convenient culprit. If counselling systems, grievance mechanisms, academic procedures, communication or crisis response are weak, those weaknesses remain even after one person has been removed. We cannot destroy someone’s professional standing first and begin the inquiry later.
A young life has already been lost. That tragedy deserves empathy, introspection and a rigorous search for the truth. If wrongdoing is established, punishment must follow. But another injustice cannot become the price of demonstrating that we care.
Universities ask students to distinguish evidence from belief and argument from assertion. In moments of crisis, they must hold themselves to the same standard. Compassion must make us more humane, not less rational; discipline must be firm, not demeaning; and no one, student or teacher, should be punished before guilt is established.
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