India, April 10 -- Public perception of the quality of higher education institutions (HEIs) in India is influenced significantly by the accreditation system run by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC). The CBI arrest of seven NAAC officials earlier this year in a bribery-for-ratings case sullied trust in this system. It is against this backdrop that the recent removal of over a fifth of the body's 5,300-plus assessors must be read - as necessary cleansing to revive trust.

Allegations of bad-faith assessments have been around for a long time, and a NAAC probe reported data discrepancies, protocol violations, and other irregularities on the part of some assessors. The impact of this is not hard to imagine -- hundreds of...