New Delhi, Oct 5 (PTI):  Chetan Bhagat, an IIT alumnus turned-celebrity writer, took umbrage at Infosys chairman emeritus N R Narayana Murthy's "sweeping" comments on the quality of engineers churned out by premier IITs.

Slamming Murthy, Bhagat said on Tuesday that such comments should not have come from a person who runs a "body shopping" company and calls it "hi-tech."

"It is ironic when someone who runs a body shopping company and calls it hi-tech, makes sweeping comments on the quality of IIT students," said Bhagat in a tweet on the microblogging site Twitter.

Taking up cudgels for the students from the country's centres of excellence, Bhagat referred to the contribution of IIT students in the making of Information Technology(IT) major Infosys.

"IITians have made a great contribution in making Infosys what it is. Hope people remember that," said Bhagat, who did his Mechanical Engineering from IIT, Delhi.

In Bhagat's view, Murthy should not have been so "sweepingly highanded."

"Mr Murthy had a point, but wish he wasn't so sweepingly high handed. Fix the system. No point judging students," he said.

Voicing his displeasure over the quality of engineers that pass out of the IITs, Murthy said the majority of these students fared poorly at jobs and global institutions of higher education.

Addressing a gathering of hundreds of former IITians at a 'Pan IIT' summit in New York, Murthy said the quality of students entering Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) has deteriorated over the years due to the coaching classes that prepare engineering aspirants.

It is for the second time that Bhagat has reacted strongly when questions were raised about the IITs.

When the outspoken Union Minister Jairam Ramesh kicked of a controversy with his remark that the faculty at the country's premier engineering institutes, the IITs, is not world class, Bhagat rebuffed him asking how many politicians in India were world class.

Ramesh had however said that students of the IITs are world class.