AMAR SINGHWhy I started thinking about this
Lately I keep running into the same line in job advertisements. Consulting firms, multinationals, tech companies, and professional service firms now ask for an MBA, PGDM, B.Tech or equivalent from an institution in the Top 50 of NIRF or the FT Global Rankings. You see it most in roles around policy advisory, digital governance, IT, project management and government consulting.
I understand the instinct. Employers want capable people, and a college's reputation says something about the environment a candidate studied in. Nobody can reasonably object to that.
My problem starts when the ranking stops being one factor among many and becomes a hard eligibility gate. Take a professional with 15 years of solid work behind them. Should they be shut out because their college isn't in the Top 50 today? And does the answer change when the job sits inside a government department, a public-sector undertaking, or a taxpayer-funded project?
That is what I want to work through here: what these rankings actually measure, how they change, and what the Constitution says when the State is the one setting the condition.
The 15-year-old degree problem
NIRF was launched by the Government of India on 29 September 2015, and the first India Rankings came out in 2016.
Now picture someone who finished engineering in 2008 or an MBA in 2010. There was no NIRF then. Their college was respected, academically serious and duly recognised. Since graduating, they have built a career in policy, digital transformation, technology management or public administration.
In 2026 they apply for a senior consulting role asking for 10 to 15 years of experience. They meet the degree requirement and the experience requirement. They are still rejected, because their old college isn't in this year's Top 50.
Is that reasonable? I don't think it is, and the trouble goes beyond rankings not existing back then. Rankings move. A college can be 35th one year, 48th the next, and 55th after that. The reasons vary: research output, faculty numbers, placement data, how an institution reports its figures, a change in methodology, or simply other colleges improving faster. None of that tells you a person who left campus years ago has become any less competent.
So a few awkward questions follow:
- Which ranking counts: the one at admission, at graduation, or on the day of recruitment?
- How do you treat people who studied before NIRF existed?
- If a college slips from 49 to 51, do its alumni suddenly become ineligible?
- If a college climbs into the Top 50, do all its past graduates become eligible overnight?
- Can an annual institutional score really decide the employability of someone with 15 years of independent work?
Used as an absolute bar, without safeguards, the criterion starts to look shaky.
Rankings judge institutions, not people
The Ministry of Education introduced NIRF to compare higher education institutions across India. The Financial Times publishes international rankings of business schools and management programmes. Both do useful work. They push institutions toward transparency, help students choose, and encourage better academic performance.
But an institution doing well and an individual being good at their job are different things. A university can excel in research, international collaboration, faculty qualifications and infrastructure, and that still doesn't prove every graduate is better than graduates of other recognised universities. The reverse holds too: colleges outside the Top 50 turn out excellent engineers, administrators, researchers, entrepreneurs and policy people.
This matters most when hiring experienced professionals. Suitability for a government technology project is better judged by relevant qualifications, past project work, technical knowledge, leadership, demonstrated results and integrity. A ranking can inform that decision. It shouldn't replace it.
A rank is a comparison of institutions in a given year. It is not a lifelong certificate stamped on every alumnus.
What the rankings actually measure
Before treating either ranking as an eligibility standard, it helps to know what's inside it.
NIRF scores institutions on five broad parameters, and the weights depend on the category. For the Overall category they are:
| Parameter | Weight |
|---|---|
| Teaching, Learning and Resources | 30% |
| Research and Professional Practice | 30% |
| Graduation Outcomes | 20% |
| Outreach and Inclusivity | 10% |
| Perception | 10% |
Teaching and Learning looks at faculty, student strength and resources. Research covers publications, impact and patents. Graduation Outcomes looks at academic and employment results. Outreach and Inclusivity covers diversity, accessibility and representation. Perception reflects how the institution is regarded by stakeholders.
All legitimate indicators, but most of them describe the organisation as a whole rather than any one graduate. NIRF also publishes separate lists for Engineering, Management, Universities, Colleges and more. An advertisement that just says "NIRF Top 50" is therefore vague unless it names the category and the year.
The FT Global MBA ranking works differently. Its 2026 methodology uses 21 criteria, with roughly 56% of the weight coming from alumni surveys, 34% from business-school data and 10% from research. It looks at alumni salaries, salary growth, career progression, value for money, international diversity, environmental and social education, and faculty research.
That is a fair way to compare international MBA programmes. But salary growth depends heavily on geography, industry and the economy at the time. It can't tell you whether a particular person is fit to handle a public policy or government technology assignment. The FT also publishes separate Global MBA and Executive MBA rankings, so "FT Global Top 50" on its own is equally unclear.
One more point worth making: ranking status has nothing to do with whether a university is statutorily recognised or whether its degrees are legally valid. Those are separate questions.
Private employers: wide discretion
I want to be fair here, because the law is not on the side of every complaint. Private employers generally have a lot of freedom in setting hiring standards. A consulting firm that prefers graduates of leading institutions may be acting on client expectations, internal standards or its own view of academic quality.
Articles 14 and 16 don't ordinarily apply to a purely private employer's hiring in the way they apply to the State. Article 16 is about equal opportunity in public employment, and Article 15(1) is aimed at discrimination by the State on specified grounds. Institutional ranking is not among the prohibited grounds in Articles 15(1) or 16(2) either.
So it would be wrong to say every private company with a Top 50 preference is violating fundamental rights. Subject to statutes and contracts, it can set selective requirements.
Still, there is a difference between a preference and an absolute exclusion that ignores experience altogether. The second may be unwise and unfair as a hiring practice. Unfair, though, is not automatically unconstitutional when the employer is private.
When the government sets the condition
Things get more interesting when the ranking requirement comes from a government department, a public-sector body or a government-funded consultancy contract.
Article 14 guarantees equality before the law, and Article 16(1) guarantees equality of opportunity in employment or appointment under the State. The government is free to set educational qualifications, experience requirements and technical standards, but within constitutional limits.
In State of Jammu and Kashmir v. Triloki Nath Khosa, (1974) 1 SCC 19, the Supreme Court accepted that differences in educational qualifications can justify reasonable classification in public employment. But separating a degree-holder from a diploma-holder is not the same as separating two degree-holders on the basis of how their colleges are ranked today. The qualification someone holds and the current rank of the institution that awarded it are two different things.
Whether such a distinction is valid turns on its purpose, its rationality and its link to the duties of the post. A rank cutoff is certainly a classification. The real question is whether it has a rational connection to the goal of picking competent professionals. A department adding a mandatory Top 50 condition should be able to explain why it is relevant and necessary for that specific assignment.
Government-funded does not mean government employment
This distinction gets missed often. A person employed by a private consulting firm doesn't become a government employee just because the firm is executing a publicly funded project. So Article 16 may not directly govern that person's appointment.
But if the government itself writes the Top 50 condition into a tender, an RFP or a consultancy contract, that decision can be tested under Article 14. How it fares depends on the nature of the procurement, the purpose of the condition, the contractual framework and the justification the authority gives. Public funding doesn't make a condition discriminatory by itself, but it does bring in obligations of fairness and non-arbitrariness.
How courts look at this
The Constitution doesn't ban classification. It bans arbitrary classification. Under the familiar Article 14 test, a classification needs an intelligible differentia and that differentia must have a rational nexus with the objective.
So where experienced professionals hold recognised qualifications and have the needed technical expertise, the authority has to ask whether an institutional cutoff really helps deliver the project. The question isn't whether graduates of top-ranked institutions can be preferred in the right circumstances. It is whether graduates of every other recognised institution must be shut out.
In government contracting, the Supreme Court has repeatedly stressed fairness while also respecting the administration's discretion over tender conditions. A Top 50 condition in an RFP can't be presumed unconstitutional just because it is restrictive. Someone challenging it would need to show why it is arbitrary, irrational, badly framed or unconnected to what the project needs. Courts generally don't swap in their own preferred standards for those chosen by technical authorities. But discretion is not a licence to impose arbitrary conditions.
Questions authorities should answer
Before making an institutional ranking mandatory, a public authority should be able to answer the following:
- Historical fairness. How will people who graduated before the ranking framework existed be assessed?
- Fluctuating ranks. Does eligibility depend on the current ranking or a historical one? What happens when an institution drops out of the Top 50?
- Comparability. Why treat NIRF Management, NIRF Engineering and the FT Global MBA ranking as interchangeable when their aims and methods differ?
- Relevance. What evidence shows that a Top 50 graduate performs better in this particular consulting role?
- Experience. Why should someone with 15 years of proven work be rejected before any assessment because their college's rank is lower today?
- Transparency. Has the department published the ranking year, the category, the list of qualifying institutions and how verification will work?
- Public interest. Could the condition cut down competition, exclude capable people or push up the cost of consultancy?
- Equal opportunity. Is complete exclusion really necessary, or could experience, technical competence and objective assessment achieve the same purpose with a lighter restriction?
Where public money and government decisions are involved, these deserve proper answers.
Can it be challenged in court?
Yes. A ranking requirement imposed by a government authority can be challenged before the High Court under Article 226, depending on the facts, maintainability and the usual legal principles.
Possible grounds include arbitrariness under Article 14, unreasonable classification, no rational link to the project's objectives, ambiguity in the criteria, inconsistent application, or breach of binding recruitment rules. Article 16(1) can add a further ground if the process concerns public employment or appointment under the State. But the fact that a private employee will work on a government project doesn't by itself create an Article 16 claim.
A court would look at the advertisement, the government's instructions, the tender documents, the recruitment rules, the decision-making process and the reasons given for the condition. The remedy might be reconsideration, clarification or striking down the condition in a suitable case. It doesn't usually mean the excluded candidate is entitled to the job.
So any challenge should rest on the exact source and operation of the restriction, not on an assumption that every ranking requirement is discriminatory.
A fairer way forward
Rankings are good tools for raising standards in higher education. They encourage competition, investment in academics, research output and better governance. But a system built to compare institutions shouldn't quietly turn into a way of screening out experienced professionals from public opportunities.
Government bodies could instead look at recognised qualifications, relevant experience, technical skill, successful project delivery and achievements that can be verified. Institutional reputation can still count as an additional factor where it is justified, without acting as an automatic disqualification.
And where a ranking requirement truly is essential, the authority should say clearly which ranking system, which category, which year, how earlier graduates are treated and what alternative route exists. That would add transparency without needlessly limiting who can compete.
Final thoughts
A degree is earned at one point in time. Professional competence is built over years of learning and work. A ranking, on the other hand, is a shifting comparison shaped by many academic and organisational factors. Treating the two as the same thing risks mistaking an institution's reputation for an individual's merit.
Private employers will keep their discretion to prefer certain institutions. When a public authority imposes such conditions, though, they have to meet constitutional and administrative-law standards. The concern isn't that NIRF or the FT rank institutions differently. It is whether the State can use those ranks to keep qualified people out of public opportunities.
Someone who graduated 15 years ago shouldn't be assumed inferior because their college sits somewhere else on today's list. Good institutions deserve recognition. Good professionals deserve to be judged on what they have actually done, wherever they studied.