After blast links, Al-Falah University faces fresh scrutiny as NAAC issues notice over accreditation claims on website

Days after the Red Fort car blast, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) has issued a show-cause notice to Al-Falah University in Faridabad for displaying false accreditation on its website.

Since the university on its website has claimed that two of its institutes — Al-Falah School of Engineering & Technology and Al-Falah School of Education and Training — were accredited by NAAC, the notice mentioned that the accreditation had expired long ago, hence the claim was “misleading”.

Al-Falah School of Engineering and Technology, Fatehpur, was issued accreditation from March 23, 2013, to March 22, 2018. The accreditation for the Department of Teacher Education, Al-Falah School of Education and Training, Fatehpur, lapsed in March 2016.

The accreditation is given for a period of five years. NAAC has said that both colleges have not volunteered for the Cycle-2 Assessment and Accreditation (A&A) process of NAAC.

“It is brought to the notice of NAAC that the Al-Falah University neither accredited nor volunteered for Cycle-1 for A&A has publicly displayed on their website that "Al-Falah University is an endeavour of Al-Falah Charitable Trust, which has been running three colleges on the campus, namely Al Falah School of Engineering and Technology (since 1997, Graded A by NAAC), Brown Hill College of Engineering and Technology (since 2008), and Al-Falah School of Education and Training (since 2006, Graded A by NAAC),” the notice said.

NAAC has asked the university why legal action should not be initiated against it.

"Why should the University not be disqualified for future consideration for Assessment and Accreditation (A&A) by NAAC? Why should the NAAC not recommend to the UGC to withdraw the Al-Falah University's recognition and why should the NAAC not recommend to the NMC to withdraw the NMC recognition for Al-Falah University's NMC recognized programmes?” the notice said.

The council has asked the university to remove the NAAC accreditation details from its website.

“The university may respond within 7 days from the receipt of this show-cause notice in this,” NAAC said in a notice.

The university is under scrutiny after staff members at Al-Falah School of Medical Sciences and Research Centre —Umar Un Nabi, Muzammil Shakeel and Shaheen Saeed —were linked to the car blast outside the Red Fort.