The Board, despite stiff opposition from some members, decided to constitute an inquiry committee with a retired judge of the Allahabad High Court as inquiry officer. After the Board meeting, three more attempts were made for reconciliation, but all of them broke down at the apology issue. While the four professors eventually agreed to write a mild apology, Saderla wanted the apology to be unconditional and made public since his humiliation had been public. This was outright rejected by the four professors.

Several people told me to put pressure on Saderla to accept the above apology, but I refused. His demand was fair and it was the least he deserved after all that he and his family had been through.

Sometime in March second half, Rajiv Shekhar joined IIT Dhanbad as Director.

National SC Commission steps in

Meanwhile, the selections for the Director of the institute concluded and Professor Abhay Karandikar from IIT Bombay was appointed. He planned to join on 17 April and so I was to hold fort until then.

The NCSC, acting on the complaint of SS, called him, AK Ghosh and me on 10 April for a hearing in Delhi. The Commission went through the FFC report and asked me why did I not file an FIR against the four after receiving the report. I had no answer except to say that the BoG has not asked me to file the FIR. I got a lashing from the Commission and they said that I was trying to protect the accused. The only saving grace for me was the unambiguous statement by Saderla that I had been supporting him. In the end, the Commission said that they would henceforth advise the institute on how to act.

Within three days, the letter from the NCSC arrived. It recommended filing of an FIR against the four professors, conducting an inquiry through a retired judge (as also decided by the Board), and several other measures aimed at making Saderla feel relatively more comfortable. I checked with our legal adviser, BoG chairman, and some other knowledgeable people – their uniform advice was to implement the recommendations of the NCSC. It was four days before the new director was to take charge and I felt that it would not be fair to him to start his tenure at the institute with an FIR against some faculty. I decided to do it myself.

By this time, however, there was a growing sense among many faculty in the institute that I was against the four professors and had deliberately ensured that they land in trouble. A number of well-wishers asked me to stay away from filing the FIR as it would only intensify this feeling. Finally, I decided to follow their advice, and only initiated some of the other measures recommended by the NCSC.

A day before Professor Karandikar joined, the four faculty went to the Allahabad High Court and got a stay against implementation of the NCSC recommendations. This obviated the need for filing an FIR and took a load off the institute.

Justice Siddiqi begins inquiry

Soon after the joining, Professor Karandikar took full charge of this case. The four professors also met him and requested to change the judge I had identified to conduct the inquiry. I also gave the same advice to the Director since the inquiry would lose its sanctity if either of the sides did not have trust in the process.

So a different judge, Justice Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqi, retired from Allahabad High Court, was appointed by the Director as the inquiry officer. Justice Siddiqi started the inquiry in May and continued over the next few months. Several people, including me, deposed before him and were cross-questioned by the four professors.

In the interim, Saderla had started focusing on his work. He shared with me his development of “flying wings”, which looks like a large version of paper kites we used to fly as kids! He also got a very good rating from students for his teaching the previous semester, some achievement for one whose capabilities for being a faculty were questioned! While he and his family were still isolated, there was now hope of the better future.

The report of Justice Siddiqi came in August end. It was devastating. Justice Siddiqi found all four professors guilty of serious violations of conduct rules as well as several clauses of the SC/ST Act. In very strong language, he wrote: “...all the delinquent officials have behaved in a most uncivilized, rustic, unsophisticated, and awkward manner with a clear intent to tarnish the image of IIT, to damage its reputation and to undermine and destroy the authority/employer/IIT gradually and imperceptibly and deserve no mercy, no leniency.”

He was also thoroughly impressed by how Saderla had conducted himself during the ordeal. His last paragraph in the report was: “Before concluding the report, nobility demands that I may express my gratitude to Dr Subrahmanyam Saderla to have maintained his calm, withstood irrationality and paranoia caused by the four delinquent of officials...”

The report was totally unexpected. During the hearings, Justice Siddiqi had appeared to me a very easy-going person, who would not hurt a fly. Saderla was not surprised though – he said he had confidence in the judge. He clearly had better connect with the judge’s thought process than I did.

Another blow below the belt

The report was presented to the BoG in an emergency meeting in September. As expected, another campaign started in the campus before the Board meeting to somehow get the Board to reject the report. After several hours of discussions, the Board decided to accept the part of the report related to violations of service rules and all the four professors were then asked to file their response. In the next meeting, after about a month, the Board decided to award punishment to the four faculty: Ishan Sharma was given a warning for his conduct during seminar, and the other three were demoted by one rank.

Sharma continued with his UAV programme. This time he sent a video to me of the VTOL project that he and AK Ghosh were working together on. I had the sense that we are now coming to an end to this sad saga, and SS can then settle down with his family.

Alas, it was not to be! One day before the BoG was to meet for deciding on punitive action for the four professors, an anonymous email from a gmail ID reached the inboxes of a large number of faculty alleging that Saderla has plagiarised his Ph.D thesis and, therefore, his degree should be revoked. This caused another sensation on the campus. Again, there were talks in corridors and canteens that Saderla had cheated in his Ph.D; he was unworthy even of a Ph.D from the institute, and that his degree should be withdrawn.

Saderla and Shravanthi were in a state of shock. Their attempts to painstakingly build their life on campus were in shambles. I tried to buck them up, but my words sounded hollow even to me.

The case was handed over to the institute’s Academics Ethics Cell (AEC) for investigation. AEC found that while some portions of the text in the introduction and literature survey chapters were copied from an earlier thesis, the results were all unique. Before dust settled on this, on 12 November came another anonymous mail alleging that Saderla has plagiarised his M.Tech thesis as well. It was evident to many of us, and painfully so to SS and Shravanthi, that some people were bent upon destroying his credibility and career.

On 18 November, 322 days after joining the institute, his career in jeopardy, Saderla filed an FIR in the local police station against the unknown sender of emails and the four professors under the SC/ST Act.

Hell breaks loose

The news of the FIR travelled quickly. On the night of 18 November, 20-odd faculty members along with many students (brought by these faculty) went to the Director’s residence and demanded that he stop the police from arresting the four professors, as well as take action against SS and others supporting him. Over the next few days, several rounds of meetings by supporters of the four professors were held and even the spouses of many faculty members staged a dharna. One of the resolutions passed held me and AKG responsible for all the problems, and demanded that the Director divest both of us of our administrative positions.

The four professors immediately went to the Allahabad High Court and got a stay on the police investigation into the complaint by SS. This time, SS decided to fight back, and engaged a lawyer to contest the stay. The case is still in the courts.

Yet another blow below the belt

In January this year, a few students of the course Saderla taught in the previous semester complained to the Director that SS did not cover the full curriculum. This complaint came at a time when Saderla’s appointment was to be considered for confirmation. The Director asked a senior faculty of Aerospace, who used to teach the same course earlier, to investigate the issue. His conclusion, after going through the course file, was that Saderla not only covered the curriculum, but also offered additional classes to make up for the required background. He also opined that the complaint was motivated, and appears to be orchestrated by a few faculty members.

In another Board meeting held in January, the demotion punishment given to two of the four professors was reduced to withholding of two increments. For Shekhar, MHRD had intervened and said that any punishment to him required permission of the President of India since he was currently Director of an IIT. The punishment was very light, and reflected the pressure brought upon the Board by our faculty.

Grandstanding in senate and the final blow

Despite the light punishment, the friends of four professors were in no mood to relent. Now was the time for them to take revenge. On 14 March, the Ethics Cell report was discussed in the institute senate. Many senators took a moral high ground saying that copying even one paragraph in the thesis is abhorrent and requires the strictest punishment. Some of us appealed that, while the thesis may be revised, the senate should not ask for the degree to be revoked as it has disastrous consequences. It was of no use – there was a lynch mob baying for blood. The proposal to withdraw Saderla’s degree was passed by a vote of 42-15. It left many of us distraught, but when I talked to Saderla the next day, he showed admirable equanimity about it.

His transformation from a bewildered young man caught in an unexpected storm to a hardened adult in just one year is now complete. I am both happy and sad to be a witness of this.

Epilogue

There are three, very disturbing, realities I have been confronted with in this affair. First, the failure of our system. For nearly one whole year, Saderla kept his faith in the system and did not step outside the boundaries of the institute. He could easily have gone to the media and/or police very early, and would have a strong case of harassment. The system could not put a stop to his continued harassment.

As academicians, we are perhaps too soft to take a tough stance required in such situations. Second, the behaviour of many of our faculty has been downright disgraceful. In none of the meetings held after the FIR was filed, did the trauma undergone by SS and his family receive any attention – the only discussion point was how four senior professors are being unfairly targeted. And some of them have become vengeful – to the extent of attempting to destroy the career of a young, promising faculty. It appears that some of us are ready to support our friends using any means, fair or foul, even if it means tearing down the structures and processes we ourselves have made.

Third, I always thought that at IIT Kanpur, we respected merit and merit alone. This belief has taken a big hit. While I would still like to believe that most of us go by merit, I now know that for some of us, caste of a person is of paramount importance. It is a reality check I wish I never had.

The story has now been widely shared, and different perspectives are being published and debated. This is as it should be. However, in their attempt to defend the actions of guilty professors, some are trying to shift the narrative to:

1) Saderla being not worthy of being hired at IIT-K and his recruitment being only because of his caste and/or manipulation by AKG

2) this being a political fight between two groups in the institute and Saderla being used as a pawn. Both are rather devious attempts at diverting the focus from the core issue. Hence I am addressing both with necessary details.

A substandard hire?

The institute always looks for people with good ability to carry out high-quality research. This ability is of two types: innate ability - one is born with it, and acquired ability - one develops it over time with training.

The ability of the second type depends on the quality of training besides also being a function of the first type. Both the types are important: someone with high innate ability but low-acquired ability can develop fast over time and do very well. Similarly, someone with high acquired ability but low innate ability can contribute significantly using one’s knowledge and dedication. Of course, having both abilities high is ideal but restricting attention to only such researchers would miss out many potential high performers.

When selecting a candidate, a judgement about both the abilities needs to be made and a decision taken whether the candidate can flourish in the system. While performance in courses (measured by grade point average), college of graduation, publications etc help in estimating acquired ability, the estimation of innate ability is far more subjective and requires experienced hands. This is why, worldwide, the selection is done with the help of senior experts. To avoid any biases creeping in, the experts are chosen from outside the institute in the Indian system.

In Saderla’s selection, three of the country’s topmost experts in Aerospace Engineering were present: Professor K P Sinhamahapatra (HAL Chair Professor, IIT Kharagpur; expert in aerodynamics with close relationship with flight mechanics), Professor B N Raghunandan (former Dean, Faculty of Engineering at IISc Bangalore; INAE Fellow; expert in propulsion), and another expert from IISc Bangalore in flight mechanics and control.

After interacting with Saderla, it was their unanimous opinion that while he may lack a bit in acquired ability, he has high innate ability. Further, that he is one of the very few researchers in the country working in Flight Mechanics and that the Aerospace Department in IIT-K has not hired any faculty in this area for the past 20 years. Also, more than his publications (six in number at the time) and the fact that he had best student research paper award in an international conference to his credit, they were impressed by the fact that the method invented by him in his Ph.D was used by TASL (Tata Advanced Systems Ltd) to design hand-held fixed-wing UAVs for defence. All this led to the experts recommending Saderla unanimously for a faculty position.

Let us now look at some other data points. Saderla, after completing his Ph.D was offered a two-year postdoctoral position at Gyeonsang National University of South Korea. After he joined IIT-K, he was given an open offer by the university to come and visit them anytime, all expenses paid. Indeed, he went in the summers of 2018 for a month.

In collaboration with his Korean coauthors, an article of his has just been accepted in the Journal of Aerospace Science and Technology (one of the highest ranked journals in Aerospace Engineering according to Scimago, https://www.scimagojr.com) on online estimation of aerodynamic parameters for UAVs. Such estimation is a very difficult task according to aerospace experts since the speed of a UAV is comparable to speed of wind which induces a lot of error in the estimation (it is easier comparatively for aircraft since their speeds are much higher and hence there are significantly lower errors due to wind).

Finally, having been involved with a large number of faculty evaluations and selections, I have acquired some ability to judge the abilities of other researchers. In my view, the innate ability of SS is amongst the top ten percent of all faculty of the institute. He has been vindicating the decision taken by the experts through his performance despite all the distractions of past one year, demonstrated by his new designs (flying wings and VTOL UAV) and contribution to L&T Defence UAV design (acknowledged here) besides publishing papers. Few faculty in the institute perform at this level immediately after joining the institute. His confirmation after one year of probation period in the institute sailed through smoothly (it does not happen with all new faculty) in January this year. Moreover, given the strategic aspect of Saderla’s work, it would have been a loss to the institute (and to the country had Saderla chosen to stay back in Korea) to not hire him.

I am confident that he will bring laurels to the institute within the next 10 years.

A question arises naturally: if Saderla is so good, what was the need to consider him under Special Recruitment Drive? The reason is the differential between innate and acquired ability. In the special drive, the focus is on finding researchers with high innate ability who may not have acquired ability meeting the usual norms, and we tend to miss such people in normal recruitment process.

The names of experts in a selection committee are confidential. Two names are reproduced with permissions from respective experts. I have not yet been able to contact the third expert. The UAV designed by TASL has now passed the trials in Ladakh with flying colours beating competing products from multiple countries, including Israel. They will now be supplying to the defence.

A power play?

The power play narrative has been circulating for a long time. I kept quiet because I expected people will see through it, but it has not happened.

For the uninitiated, the story goes like this:

Sanjay Mittal was a candidate for Directorship of IIT-K in January 2018. As I was also a candidate, I considered him a competitor and used Saderla to get him mired in a controversy so that he is eliminated from the race.

Now for the truth. I was not interested in Directorship of IIT-K. I did even not apply and refused offers of nomination from many. Yet, the selection committee constituted for the purpose by the ministry shortlisted my name for interview. I got a call for the same on 12 February. It was indeed an honour that the committee considered my name despite the application not being there. Following this, I came under considerable pressure from well-wishers to go for the interview.

After careful consideration, I decided against it and informed the ministry on 27 February, one day before the interview. One of the factors influencing this decision was the controversy regarding Saderla’s recruitment. As I wrote in my story, by February-end, I had a very ominous feeling about the case. In fact, in my mail to all Deans informing my decision, I wrote:

Manindra Agarwal

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