NEW DELHI: The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has fined IITian’s Prashikshan Kendra private limited (IITPK), an engineering entrance coaching center, for making misleading claims about its IIT-JEE examination results. The institute has been penalized Rs 3 lakh for violating the new guidelines that prevent coaching centers from making false or deceptive advertisements.
The CCPA took this decision under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, to ensure that no misleading claims are made to promote coaching services unfairly. The authority found that IITPK created a false impression of a national-level topper by using titles such as "IIT Topper" and "NEET Topper" alongside bold numbers like '1' and '2' in front of candidate names and pictures.
“This misrepresentation was designed to create the deceptive impression that these students had secured ranks at the national level in respective examinations instead of within the coaching institute,” said Nidhi Khare, Chief Commissioner of CCPA.
The investigation also revealed that the institute falsely claimed to have coached 1,384 students to secure admission in IITs. However, many of these students were admitted to other institutions such as IITs, NITs, BITS, Manipal University, VIT Vellore, and various private colleges. The institute also exaggerated its success rate to attract more students.
So far, the CCPA has issued 46 notices to different coaching institutes for misleading advertisements. It has imposed a total penalty of Rs 77.6 lakh on 24 institutes and ordered them to stop such advertisements.
In December, the CCPA also took action against several UPSC coaching centres for similar violations. It imposed fines of Rs 7 lakh each on Vajirao and Reddy and StudyIQ IAS, and Rs 1 lakh on Edge IAS for misleading claims about the results of the UPSC Civil Services Examination for 2022 and 2023.