IITs Plan Two-Year Campus Hiring Freeze for 22 Firms After Unfulfilled Offers

India’s 23 Indian Institutes of Technology are preparing coordinated action against companies accused of failing to honour employment commitments made to students graduating in 2026. The All IITs Placement Committee, or AIPC, has decided that the institutes will not cooperate with 22 affected recruiters during the next two campus-placement seasons.

The decision was taken at an AIPC meeting held at IIT Guwahati in September 2026, according to committee convenor and IIT Guwahati associate professor John Jose. The companies were expected to be formally notified by September 30.

The committee is describing the measure as “non-cooperation” rather than blacklisting. That distinction matters: it is an administrative restriction within the IIT placement system, not a government order or a general ban on the companies hiring in India.

What has been confirmed and what remains disputed

Jose said more than 150 offers across the 23 IITs had not been honoured, with some individual recruiters accounting for between 10 and 15 cases. The committee was still collecting updated information from individual campuses, meaning the final tally and full list of 22 companies were not yet publicly available.

Oracle is the most prominent company identified in connection with the action. Campus officials have estimated that the enterprise-software company did not honour about 40 IIT offers. That company-specific figure has not been confirmed by Oracle, and it should therefore be treated as an estimate rather than a settled total.

Oracle had not responded to a request for comment by the time the latest account of the AIPC decision was published. Earlier communications described by affected students and placement officials cited restructuring, changes in organisational priorities and headcount constraints. Those explanations have not been accompanied by a comprehensive public statement from the company covering the reported IIT-wide total.

Interview Kickstart and SuperAGI were among the recruiters named when the AIPC issued an earlier warning to more than 10 companies in June. Ema.ai was separately named in connection with withdrawn final offers at IIT Kharagpur. The public accounts identifying these firms did not include their responses, and it is not yet clear whether every previously named recruiter appears on the final 22-company list.

Which campuses have been affected?

Earlier reports of Oracle offer withdrawals identified IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Guwahati, IIT Madras, IIT (BHU) Varanasi, IIT Hyderabad and IIT Roorkee. Students or placement offices at NIT Warangal and Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad were also reported to have been affected.

Other institutions linked to the wider Oracle recruitment dispute have included Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology Nagpur, BITS Pilani, IIT Indore, RV College of Engineering and Punjab Engineering College. However, the AIPC’s two-season policy applies specifically to recruitment coordinated through the IIT system. NITs and other colleges would need to adopt their own measures.

What the restriction means for students

For the next two placement cycles, affected companies would be denied normal access to IIT-administered recruitment processes, including campus interviews and placement-office coordination. Students could still independently apply for off-campus roles at those companies unless a separate restriction prevented them from doing so.

The policy is designed both to protect future batches and to preserve confidence in campus offers. Many leading engineering institutes follow a “one student, one job” rule. Once a student accepts an offer, that person may be removed from subsequent recruitment rounds. A late cancellation can therefore leave a graduate looking for work after many comparable entry-level positions have already been filled.

The AIPC initially asked companies to honour their commitments or provide compensation equivalent to three months of salary. It later set September 15 as an onboarding deadline before deciding on coordinated non-cooperation. Placement teams have also circulated affected graduates’ résumés to established recruiters. An estimated 20% to 30% have found alternatives through such referrals, although the institutes do not yet have a complete count because some graduates may have secured jobs independently.

The dispute highlights a structural weakness in campus recruitment: institutions can restrict a company’s future access, but they cannot instantly replace a specialised or high-paying offer lost near graduation. For students and families, the practical question is therefore not only whether recruiters face consequences, but how quickly affected graduates receive credible alternative opportunities.