Mumbai: Some of the 31 companies blacklisted by IITs for a year from campus placements, have termed the All-India Placement Committee (AIPC)’s decision harsh, while a few others claimed they were not at fault.“The blacklisting has put the companies in a bad light, as even investors have been calling us seeking an explanation,” the founder of a banned firm told TOI.A senior professor said, “The sanctity of the campus placement process is lost when companies hire students and revoke the offer without prior intimation. There have been instances, when students approached the companies on their joining dates, they were asked to come back after six months. This kind of unprofessionalism is not expected. We do not want our students to suffer due their lack of diligence,”However, many industry experts feel the blacklisting could prove detrimental to students in the long run. Following a request made by one of the IITs to the AIPC on Friday, the ban on one of the companies may be revoked.Mohit Kumar, cofounder of Roadrunnr which is now Runnr after having merged with TinyOwl , said IITs’ blacklisting even when the company honoured job offers for everybody and just delayed the joining by four months for a few is slightly harsh.A spokesperson of Portea , another banned firm said, “We made nine offers last year and went ahead with four. We informed the others four months ahead of the planned joining date. We made three acquisitions from the time we made the offers, so our needs changed. Obviously, this is not the ideal outcome for the candidates who could not join us and we would have liked to have avoided this.”A few companies claimed they were not at fault. “We gave offer letters only to two candidates who could not pass their final exam and requested for three to four months time for joining... We were in urgent need, so we hired people from industry,” said Dinesh Sharma, founder of ConsultLane . Vikas Sekhri of CashCare Technology said only one candidate was hired from IIT-Bombay. “In December, we were told the candidate did not accept the offer. There was no communication till May. In May when they contacted us, we had filled the position. We offered the candidate an internship too,” he said.