IIT Bombay closes gates for 9 startups for revoking, delaying placement offers

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay on Thursday blacklisted nine companies, including startups like Portea Medical and Chinese firm Johnson Electric, from placements for one year as a penalty for a variety of violations including revoking of offers to some of its graduates.

The action follows a controversy over a host of companies, mostly startups finding the going tough, either revoking the offer letters or delaying joining dates, an action that has a huge impact on the students.Online pharmacy player Portea, which has reportedly raised $46.5 million in two rounds, has been blacklisted for one year for revoking an offer, the school said in an official statement. Similarly, NCR-based grocery startup Peppertap has also been penalised for revoking offers.Johnson Electric of China has also been penalised for revoking offers. Others who faced action for revoking offers include GPSK and Cashcare Technologies, the statement said. 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, it said.

A company named LeGarde Burnett Group was also blacklisted for both revoking an offer after it was found to be "fake" with no proper office address, it said. 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.

Also read : Six startups barred from IITs; Flipkart safe

It can be noted that since IITs have a centralised placement panel called the All IITs Placement Committee and in all likelihood, the action by IIT-Bombay will automatically bar the startups from approaching any of the IITs in the country for placements next year.

Right after multiple shutdowns by startups few months back, a meeting of the All IITs Placement Committee had decided to bar six startups from campus recruitment in these institutes for 2016-17 on the grounds of withdrawing their offers. Though their names remained disclosed, the country’s premium institutes are definitely not taking it lightly.