Delhi blast: Al Falah University gets show-cause from NAAC over false accreditation claim

New Delhi: A day after the tainted past of the Vice-Chancellor of the Al Falah University came under the scanner of agencies, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) on Thursday sent a notice to the university for continuing to display its accreditation grade despite its expiry.

The notice stated that the university “is continuing to hold out that it has an A grade accreditation which has expired” and posed several questions to the institution. The varsity’s website was taken down later. 

On Wednesday, it emerged that the VC, Jawad Ahmad Siddiqui, was jailed for fraud when he was an employee of Jamia Millia Islamia University in 2000. 

NAAC officials stated that the university itself has never been accredited, although some of its earlier constituent colleges received A-grades. “ the university itself was never accredited its engineering college received an A grade in 2013 and its teacher-education school in 2011. Both of them have since lapsed, as accreditation is valid for five years,” the notice said. The notice asks why the university should not be barred from future accreditation and why regulators should not be urged to withdraw recognition of its programmes. 

The university is now under scrutiny in connection with the terror-module investigation following a blast at Chandni Chowk on Monday that left 13 dead and 20 injured. The institution, located in Dhauj village in Faridabad, Haryana, is being probed as members of a suspected “white-collar terror ecosystem” related to the incident were students there. Among the individuals linked to the module are four doctors associated with Al Falah Medical College – Dr Umar Un Nabi, Dr Muzammil Shakeel Ganaei, Dr Shaheen Shahid and Dr Nisar-ul-Hassan. 

Two of the suspects involved in the blast, who were part of the university, had either been terminated or dismissed from their earlier jobs. Dr Nisar-ul-Hassan had previously been dismissed in 2023 by the Jammu & Kashmir administration under Article 311(2)(c) for “activities in the interest of the security of the State”. He was reportedly employed at Al Falah after his dismissal. Dr Umar Un Nabi was earlier employed at the Government Medical College in Anantnag and was terminated in 2023 after a patient died due to his negligence. 

While the university is managed by the Al Falah Charitable Trust, established in 1995, its chancellor and founder, Jawad Ahmad Siddiqui, was previously a lecturer at Jamia Millia Islamia. In 2000, an FIR (No. 43/2000) was lodged against him and his brother for alleged fraud, forgery and diversion of investor funds. The Economic Offences Wing investigated the case, and he spent more than three years in Tihar Jail. 

The engineering college under Al Falah, later upgraded to university status, received its A-grade accreditation in 2013. The university status was granted in 2014 under the Haryana Private Universities Act. NAAC accreditation validity is for five years, and the engineering college accreditation has since lapsed.