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DIRECTORY NOTE 01Independent informational portal
Five myths, five registers
Every claim below sounds like a fact on the phone. Each one is settled by a public record you can open while the call is still going.
Use this directory to narrow the search. Use the regulator record to make the final decision.
VERIFICATION ROUTE / 2026A brochure is a claim. The current official record is the proof.Current file: Five approval myths
Match the programme
Check the exact MBA, PGDM or management course and approved intake.
Match the academic year
An old letter is not proof for the current admission session.
Why registers beat rebuttals
You cannot out-argue a trained caller, and you do not need to. Every consequential claim in an admission pitch corresponds to a public record that either contains it or does not. The five claims below are the ones we meet most often; each comes paired with the register that settles it, usually in less time than the call takes.
One habit multiplies the value of everything below: make the caller send you the link. “Please email me the exact page where I can see that” converts a fluent claim into a checkable citation, and the difference between the two arrives in your inbox — or conspicuously does not.
Myth 1: “We are AICTE approved, so everything is covered”
Approval is granular. It attaches to one institute, one campus, one course, one intake, one session — a row, not a halo. A genuine approval for one programme says nothing about the different programme you were called about, and a university's degree programmes are governed through different machinery altogether.
The register: AICTE's public institution records. Find the row for the exact course, campus and current session — each field is explained here.
Myth 2: “Approved since 1996”
A founding year answers a history question; your admission asks a current-session question. Institutions do lapse, pick up conditional status, or lose approval for particular courses while “approved since” remains technically true the whole time.
The register: the same records, filtered to the session you would join. The date that matters is this year's, whichever year the letterhead celebrates.
Myth 3: “We are government registered, so our award is a degree”
Two registers are being blended into one. Registration — as a society or a trust — creates a lawful body; it confers no power to award degrees, which belongs to universities and statute-backed institutions. Note what this myth is not: it is not evidence the institute is bad. The IIMs themselves were registered societies until their own Act commenced in 2018, and across those decades their flagship award was a diploma — the category is respectable; the claim of degree power is what fails.
The registers: the societies or trust record for lawful existence; the UGC list of universities for degree power. A body present on the first and absent from the second awards diplomas — the category is explained here.
Myth 4: “Our university partnership makes this a university programme”
Partnerships are real and often useful — teaching, mentoring and study support can genuinely be delegated to a centre. The award cannot. Either the university's name and seal will be on your certificate or the institute's will; “in association with” on a brochure decides nothing either way.
The register: the university's own published material naming the programme and, where applicable, the centre — plus the specimen certificate, which is this claim in physical form. Ask for it before paying anything.
Myth 5: “NAAC A — government approved”
A NAAC grade is an accreditation outcome: a scored, banded assessment of institutional quality with an expiry date. It is neither a licence for a programme nor an entitlement for a mode, and it can be current while a session entitlement is not. Treat it as one exhibit — a real one — in a file that still needs the approval registers.
The register: the grade sheet itself, read against its own dates — here is how — and, separately, the DEB or AICTE entry that actually governs the programme.
Watching a register do its work
For a live demonstration of the method, iict.aicte.mba runs a single institute — IICT, Indian Institute of Commerce and Trade, of Lucknow — through the verification desk. The answer to “is it AICTE approved?” is no, and the page shows why that is the wrong register for what the institute actually awards: its own autonomous diplomas, with university degrees arriving only through the partner university. A “no” on an irrelevant register is not a scandal, and a “yes” on an irrelevant register is not protection. Matching the claim to its register is the entire game.
Save what you find as you go — each entry with its date, each emailed link alongside the claim it was meant to support. If you later enrol, that folder becomes the evidence file for your admission; if you do not, it is the reason why, written down.