Supreme Court notifies NAAC to the Ministry of Education regarding requests to seek fair grading

The Supreme Court has sought responses from the Federal Ministry of Education and others to seek measures to ensure fair and transparent ratings by national assessments and higher education institutions. Justices of Justice PS Narasimha and Joymalya Bagchi sent a notice to the ministry, the University Grants Committee (UGC) and NAAC, a request made by the non-governmental organization Bistro Destino Foundation.

Founded in 1994, NAAC is an autonomous agency under the UGC that ranks colleges and universities on parameters such as curriculum, faculty, infrastructure, research and financial well-being.

“We want to gain insight into the freedom of NAAC to submit other documents in the issue,” the bench said in an April 9 order.
The plea raised concerns about transparency and equity in the evaluation and scoring of higher education institutions conducted by NAAC.

The petition states that under the current functional system adopted by NAAC, there are concerns about fairness and transparency.

The petition referred to the case of the Central Bureau of Investigation on February 1 against NAAC officials in corruption and said it raised disturbing questions about the effectiveness of the certification process.