CBI foils education accreditation racket; JNU professor, top university officials implicated

NEW DELHI: CBI exposes mass bribery scandal where officials from NAAC and Andhra Pradesh Private University are involved: Ten persons have been arrested, including a professor of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and vice-chancellor of a private university, along with several members of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), for allegedly colluding to provide undue accreditation to educational institutions in lieu of a bribe.

The first information report (FIR) by the CBI details that officials at Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation, Guntur, had made deals with some members of the NAAC inspection team to acquire a good grading. Initially, they demanded the entire team at Rs 1.80 crore but later settled down to Rs 3 lakh and one laptop for every member of the team and Rs 10 lakh for the chairman of the committee. It is also mentioned that the travelling expenses of a committee member’s wife were also taken care of as part of the deal. Among those arrested are G P Saradhi Varma, vice-chancellor of KLEF; Koneru Raja Hareen, vice-president of KLEF; and A Ramakrishna, director of K L University, Hyderabad.

Samarendra Nath Saha, vice-chancellor of Ramchandra Chandravansi University and chairman of the NAAC Inspection Committee, is also implicated. Similarly, Rajeev Sijariya, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), coordinated the NAAC inspection team. Others involved include deans and directors from universities across India, like Bharath Institute of Law, Jagran Lakecity University, GL Bajaj Institute of Technology & Management, Davangere University and Sambalpur University.

The CBI has also arrested four more and is probing other possible connections. The FIR says that the KLEF management had actively pursued favourable accreditation by trying to influence the selection process of the NAAC inspection team. Through intermediaries, they ensured that “friendly” officials were included in the team before the list was officially announced.

According to the FIR on January 19, a payment of

Rs 10 lakh was allegedly given to an intermediary to secure a compliant inspection team. JNU professor Rajeev Sijariya, currently the dean of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee School of Management and Entrepreneurship (ABVSME) and chairperson of the Special Centre of E-Learning—both established in 2018—played a crucial role in deciding the final bribe amount. He allegedly demanded Rs 1.80 crore, saying that Rs 1.30 crore was for himself since he had to prepare the official NAAC inspection report. On 26 January, it was finalised with a deal to give Rs 3 lakh and a laptop to every member of the team and an immediate Rs 10 lakh payment to Sijariya, in exchange for which he gave them a draft report of NAAC already approved in

favour of KLEF.

The CBI has been actively investigating corruption in education accreditation and has successfully busted multiple bribery rackets in the past. This latest case exposes the deep-rooted corruption in the university ranking system, where bribes rather than merit influence accreditation scores. With 14 individuals under investigation, the CBI has assured that further arrests may follow as the

probe deepens. with agency inputs