The Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation (KLEF) in Andhra Pradesh, in the spotlight after the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested its office-bearers for allegedly bribing members of a National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) inspection team for a favourable grade, has been debarred from accreditation for five years. The Council made the announcement Saturday.

A deemed-to-be university, KLEF had secured the highest grade of A++ during NAAC’s last assessment in 2018. The grade was two notches above the A grade it was awarded in 2013. The university was now up for reassessment for which the council’s inspection was underway.

A public autonomous body of the University Grants Commission, NAAC assesses and accredits higher education institutions in India. It assesses higher education institutions based on parameters like infrastructure, teaching and evaluation, and research and innovation, and scores them in terms of a cumulative grade point average (CGPA).

NAAC grades are widely regarded as a marker of quality, with institutions prominently displaying them. According to UGC regulations, this is meant to “enable students and other stakeholders to make informed choices”.

The CBI arrested 10 people, including KLEF’s Vice-Chancellor G P Saradhi Varma, and two other office-bearers, along with six members and the chairperson of the NAAC inspection team earlier his month. The CBI’s FIR in the case says that the institute was scheduled for an inspection from January 29 to 31 for its NAAC “re-accreditation” for the 2024-29 period.

Going by the FIR, Varma allegedly approached NAAC officials through L. Manjunatha Rao, former deputy advisor, NAAC, and M. Hanumanthappa, professor and director (IQAC-NAAC), Department of Computer Science and Applications, Bangalore University, “to explore ways and means for inclusion of known members in the formation of NAAC inspection team.”

NAAC’s Executive Committee headed by Anil Sahasrabuddhe held an emergency meeting two days ago in which it was decided to debar KLEF from accreditation for five years.

“Firstly (sic), the Executive Committee of NAAC has decided that the current process of accreditation of involved University in the CBI case is summarily cancelled, and the University will be debarred for 5 years from applying for accreditation,” the Council said in a press statement.

The press statement adds, “It is also decided that all the seven members of the Peer Team are debarred for lifetime in assessment or any other activities of NAAC with immediate effect. In addition, it is decided to review the recent visits to HEIs by any of the seven members for which the results are not declared. The results of such HEIs will be withheld, and the Standing Committee of NAAC may critically review before declaring the results. In addition, it is decided that the visits of (the) last one year will be carefully analysed and put up to EC for further necessary action.”

The seven members of the NAAC peer team who were arrested include Rajeev Sijariya, professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University; D. Gopal, dean of Bharath Institute of Law; Rajesh Singh Pawar, dean of Jagran Lakecity University; Manas Kumar Mishra, director of G L Bajaj Institute of Technology & Management; Gayathri Devaraja, professor at Davangere University; Bulu Maharana, professor at Sambalpur University; and Samarendra Nath Saha, vice-chancellor of Ramchandra Chandravansi University who was chairman of the inspection committee.

Sijariya, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee School of Management and Entrepreneurship (ABVSME), has been suspended by the university. Granted deemed-to-be university status by the University Grants Commission (UGC) in 2009, KLEF was established as KL College of Engineering in 1980-81.

While the main campus is in Vaddeswaram, Guntur, it has two centres, one at Aziznagar in Telangana’s Rangareddy district, and another at Medchal-Malkajgiri in Greater Hyderabad.

Interestingly, in the overall NIRF rankings, KLEF performed better than IISER Pune, which ranked 42; IIT Ropar, which ranked 48; IIT Mandi (72); and IIT Patna (73). It also did better than NIT Warangal and NIT Calicut, which were ranked 53 and 54.

It offers a total of 24 undergraduate and 30 postgraduate programmes including BTech and MTech courses, for which it is recognised by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). It also offers BSc and MSc, BA and MA, BCom, BPharm, BBA and MBA, and LLB. Going by the Institutional Information for Quality Assessment document that the institute submitted to NAAC as part of its application for accreditation in 2024, it has 1,014 teachers and a total of 19,248 students.