31 firms can’t recruit IIT graduates, 9 of them blacklisted by IIT Bombay

IIT Bombay, one of the most sought-after engineering colleges in the country, on Thursday blacklisted nine companies from placements for one year as a penalty for a variety of violations like, revoking the offers to some of its graduates.

The action follows a controversy over a host of companies, majorly startups finding the going tough, either revoking the offer letters or delaying joining dates which have impacted students.

Online pharmacy startup Portea, which has reportedly raised $46.5 million in two funding rounds, has been blacklisted for one year for revoking an offer, the school said in an official statement.

Similarly, the NCR-based Peppertap which is into grocery sales, has also been penalised for revoking offers along with Johnson Electric of China. Others who faced action for revoking offers include GPSK and Cashcare Technologies.

For delaying the joining dates of the selected candidates, consulting companies IndusInsight, and the Houston-based American company LexInnova have been barred from placements for a year. A company named LeGarde Burnett Group was also blacklisted for both revoking an offer and after it was found ‘fake’ with no proper office address.

Another company, Mera Hunar, was found to have come up with a different name and hired students for another startup, which attracted the penal action of one year.

Since IITs have a centralised placement panel called the All IITs Placement Committee (AIPC), the action by IIT-Bombay will automatically bar the startups from approaching any of the IITs in the country for placements next year. In total, 31 firms were barred from recruiting IIT students across India.

The blacklist comprising of 31 companies was finalized on August 14 by the AIPC, but the entire list was not made public. Individual IITs, like the IIT Bombay, however were free to disclose the names of the firms they had blacklisted.