PS: I am from a tier-1 engineering college (and not an IIT), I work at Microsoft IDC, and the views here are solely mine and don’t represent anything on behalf of the company.
Cgpa matters. Period. Especially during campus placements. Don’t ever listen to anyone who says otherwise.
Most of the companies use cgpa to shortlist the candidate pool. But beyond that, whether or not you clear the interview process solely depends on your performance in the interviews.
For example, in my college, I remember Microsoft having a minimum cg cutoff of 8, Google having 8, Amazon 7. You are not eligible to sit for the interviews if your cg failed to clear the cut offs. But in case you did, a cgpa of 8 or a cgpa of 10 doesn’t make a difference. Your performance in the interviews will.
The bad news is, for your cg to not matter at all, you need to gain substantial work experience (5+ years at least). And then your work experience matters. For example, I work at Microsoft and while shortlisting candidates for potential lateral hires, the HR still looks at the cgpa, but if the candidate is from a tier-1 college (or) has work experience in a good company (or) has a really impressive profile, the criteria are relaxed. For example, Amazon + 7 cgpa will be eligible for the interview process, where as a normal company + 7.8 will not be.