The Supreme Court's division bench of Justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar recently directed the Central Government and Indian Institutes of Technology to follow the reservation policy for admission to research degree programmes and faculty recruitment as specified in the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers' Cadre) Act, 2019.

The Bench ordered that "The concerned respondents (Centre and 23 IITs) are hereby directed to follow the reservation and act as per the reservations provided under the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers' Cadre) Act, 2019". The Court was considering a petition filed in 2021 by one Sachchida Nand Pandey, requesting that the respondents follow the Reservation Policy in admission to Research Degree Programs and faculty recruitment at the IITs.

Following the Court's request for responses from the Respondents, the Central Government, on behalf of the IITs, filed a counter-affidavit stating that, in accordance with the 2019 Act, reservation is provided for all Central Educational Institutions, including the IITs. The petitioner claimed that the IITs did not follow a transparent process for hiring faculty members. As a result, non-deserving candidates gained admission to these prestigious institutions through connections, which increased corruption, favouritism, and discrimination, affecting India's internal ranking and technological growth. The current process of admitting students to the research programme and appointing IIT faculty members is "completely unconstitutional, illegal, and arbitrary," according to the petition.