Show-cause notice to Al Falah University over 'false' NAAC claim

The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) has issued a show-cause notice to Al Falah University — currently under the scanner following the Delhi car bomb blast — for falsely claiming NAAC accreditation on its official website, officials said on Thursday.

NAAC, an autonomous body responsible for assessing the quality of higher-education institutions, said the university has neither been accredited nor applied for accreditation, yet continues to publicly project some of its colleges as NAAC-certified.

In the notice, NAAC cited website text stating that three colleges under the Al Falah Charitable Trust — Al Falah School of Engineering and Technology, Brown Hill College of Engineering and Technology, and Al Falah School of Education and Training — were graded ‘A’ by NAAC.

NAAC said the claim was “absolutely wrong and misleading the public, especially parents, students and stakeholders”.

Interestingly, the university website itself now appears to have been either taken down or deactivated, with some users getting a 'harmful content' warning if they attempt to proceed, and then being met with a 'coming soon' page. Which means as of now, there's no way of verifying if the three colleges did indeed make those claims.

The council, however, has clarified that accreditation for the engineering college expired in 2018, while the School of Education and Training lost its accreditation in 2016. Neither institution has reapplied for the fresh assessment cycle, it added.

NAAC has instructed the university to immediately remove all references to NAAC certification from its website and other public documents, and provide an explanation for the misleading information.

According to its own records, Al Falah University — created under the Haryana Private Universities Act — began as an engineering college in 1997 and received A-category NAAC accreditation in 2013. It was granted university status in 2014 and later established a medical college.

The institution has long been viewed by some observers as an alternative to AMU and Jamia Millia Islamia for minority students seeking higher education.

The notice comes at a time when the university is under heightened scrutiny: three doctors associated with Al Falah University were among eight people arrested after a “white-collar terror module” was busted on Monday, hours before a high-intensity blast near Delhi’s Red Fort killed 13 people and injured several others.