MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday, in an interim stay order, restrained the Union Education Ministry and the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) from publishing the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) rank list for 2025.
A bench of Justices J Nisha Banu and S Srimathy passed the order on a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by C Chellamuthu of Dindigul alleging malpractices and lack of transparency in calculation of scores for the rank list.
Chellamuthu, in his petition, said the NIRF ranking is arrived at merely based on the data provided by the institutions without any verification or auditing. He said many institutions submit false data to boost their ranking to lure students and MNCs.
He submitted comparative data of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council’s (NAAC’s) AQAR (Annual Quality Assurance Report) reports and the NIRF reports, posted online by some institutions.
He claimed the figures corresponding to the number of PhD students, faculties, R&D funds, consultancy project funds received, etc., are higher in the NIRF reports than the AQAR reports.
‘Institutions with poor academic quality and infrastructure receive top rankings’
As the AQAR documents are verified by NAAC’s expert committees, the discrepancies in NIRF data suggest that institutions manipulated their submissions to secure higher rankings, Chellamuthu claimed. This, he alleged, allows institutions with poor academic quality and infrastructure to attain top rankings, while many reputed state universities are excluded. He warned that such manipulation could harm the quality of higher education in the country.
The petitioner urged the court to direct the Union Ministry and NBA to publish NIRF rankings—which assess educational institutions nationwide—only after thorough verification and full disclosure of the scoring methodology.
After reviewing the submitted data, the bench issued an interim order. The government counsel requested time to submit a counter affidavit, and the case was adjourned to April 24.