Dalit teen’s IIT dream hangs by a thread & Rs 17,500, family awaits relief from SC

These are choices Rajendra, who works arsenic a part-time tailor and a daily-wage labourer astatine a transformer mill successful Meerut, earning Rs 11,000 a month, has had to perpetually make. But each time, helium knew precisely what to choose. “I had to merchantability a location that we owned to wage for my eldest child’s education… I don’t regret it astatine all,” says Rajendra, who dropped retired of schoolhouse aft Class 9.

While Mohit, 24, the eldest of Rajendra’s 4 children, is doing his BTech successful machine subject & engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur, his 2nd son, Rohit, 22, is studying chemic engineering from IIT Kharagpur. His 3rd lad Amit, 20, is simply a Hindi undergraduate pupil astatine Sri Kund Kund Jain Inter College successful Khatoli, Muzaffarnagar.

So erstwhile his youngest lad Atul, 18, was denied a spot astatine IIT Dhanbad aft failing by a fewer minutes to conscionable the deadline to wage the interest that would person secured him his imagination college, Rajendra decided helium would springiness it his each — spell close up to the Supreme Court. On September 30, the tribunal is expected to perceive Atul’s lawsuit to spot “if thing tin beryllium done for protecting the admittance of the petitioner”.

At the acold extremity of Titora village, past the sugarcane fields and the bigger homes of the Gujjar community, successful 1 of the galore houses with exposed bricks and bluish Ambedkar flags fluttering connected their rooftops, the household has been facing a nerve-wracking wait.

“My lad has worked hard for this. I anticipation helium gets what helium wants,” says Rajendra.

After his Class 12, Atul took a spread twelvemonth earlier enrolling for JEE coaching classes astatine Kanpur astatine GAIL Utkarsh Super 100, a CSR inaugural of the vigor PSU that provides escaped residential coaching to meritorious students from economically anemic backgrounds.

On June 9, the family, crowding astir Atul’s member Mohit’s laptop arsenic they nervously checked the database of palmy candidates, had breached into smiles and hugs erstwhile they spotted his sanction for IIT Dhanbad. Though determination was inactive the online outgo of Rs 17,500 to beryllium made to unafraid the seat, that day, the household didn’t clasp backmost connected the celebrations – they distributed ladoos successful the village.

“Rs 17,500 is simply a large magnitude for me, but I knew I had to put the wealth for my children’s acquisition somehow,” says Rajendra.

He initially turned to a section moneylender. “He kept telling maine I would get the money, but I shouldn’t person taken his connection for it,” helium says, adding that till the afternoon of June 24, the past day to marque the payment, helium was hopeful that the moneylender would support his promise. “But helium backed retired astatine the past minute.”

Then began the scramble. Rajendra’s person Titu “bhai” lent him Rs 10,000, different friend, Ompal, gave him different Rs 4,000. “I transferred Rs 3,500 into my relationship and we managed Rs 17,500,” helium says.

Finally, arsenic they sat down to marque the online payment, 180 seconds earlier the deadline of 5 pm, the server of the portal stopped responding, says Atul. The interest could not beryllium submitted. He had mislaid his seat.

“We panicked and called IIT Dhanbad… Even the coaching institute wherever I studied tried reaching retired to the (IIT Dhanbad) authorities,” says Atul.

“That day, nary 1 ate anything,” says Rajendra’s woman Rajesh, 40.

Over the adjacent fewer months, the household knocked connected respective doors – the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and the Jharkhand Legal Services Authority, wherever they were advised past to spell to the Madras High Court since IIT Madras was the JEE Advanced exam conducting authorization for this year. After the High Court said that the alleviation sought by Atul was not nether its jurisdiction, the household approached the Supreme Court.

The household is present pinning its hopes connected a akin lawsuit that ended connected a blessed enactment successful the Supreme Court. In 2021, a seat led by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud had allowed Prince Jaibir Singh, a Dalit student, to instrumentality admittance successful IIT Bombay contempt a hold successful paying the admittance fee. Through a elder astatine his coaching centre, Atul managed to get the interaction of Prince’s family, who, successful turn, introduced them to Amol Chitale and Pragya Baghel, lawyers who had successful 2021 argued and won the lawsuit for Prince successful the Supreme Court.

On September 24, appearing for Atul, Chitale and Baghel pleaded earlier a seat of the CJI D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra that this was his 2nd and last effort astatine JEE Advanced and unless the apical tribunal cleared the decks for his admission, helium would suffer his IIT seat.

The seat had past said, “Bearing successful caput the societal inheritance of the petitioner and the hardship which helium has undergone, we are of the presumption that this is simply a acceptable and due lawsuit for the issuance of announcement to research whether thing tin beryllium done for protecting the admittance of the petitioner.” It’s this that the household is hanging connected to.

“I spot the courts fully…they tin ne'er bash anyone wrong,” says Rajendra.

Atul is optimistic too. “I utilized to beryllium tense earlier, but present I person got utilized to this. We person been going to the courts for a period now,” helium says.