The final order was passed by the CCPA, headed by Chief Commissioner Nidhi Khare and Commissioner Anupam Mishra, after a detailed investigation into the institute's promotional claims on its official website and advertisements. (Image: AI Generated)The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has imposed a penalty of Rs 7 lakh on IAS coaching institute Vajiram and Ravi IAS Study Centre LLP for publishing misleading advertisements and concealing material information related to candidate success in the UPSC Civil Services Examination (CSE). The final order was passed by the CCPA, headed by Chief Commissioner Nidhi Khare and Commissioner Anupam Mishra, after a detailed investigation into the institute’s promotional claims on its official website and advertisements.According to a press release issued by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, the institute had prominently advertised on its official website that “8 Rank Holders in the Top 10 are from Vajiram & Ravi”, “37 Rank Holders in the Top 50 are from Vajiram & Ravi”, and that “more than 30 per cent of officers selected through UPSC Civil Services Examination are students of Vajiram & Ravi” every year — claims that drew lakhs of aspirants and their families into believing the institute’s full coaching programmes were responsible for these outcomes.The CCPA’s investigation told a starkly different story. Of the eight top-10 rank holders claimed by the institute, seven had enrolled only in its free Interview Guidance Programme (IGP). Similarly, 29 of the 37 candidates in the top 50 had participated solely in the IGP — not in any paid, comprehensive coaching course.The pattern was consistent and damning across multiple years. According to the authority’s findings, 86.36 per cent of the institute’s successful candidates in 2021, 78.31 per cent in 2022, a staggering 97.56 per cent in 2023, and 71.69 per cent in 2024 had enrolled only in the Interview Guidance Programme.The CCPA underlined a critical distinction that the institute had deliberately obscured in its advertising. The Interview Guidance Programme commences only after candidates have independently cleared both the Preliminary and Mains stages of the UPSC examination. By featuring such candidates in advertisements alongside its comprehensive coaching programmes — without disclosing the nature of their actual enrolment — the institute allegedly created the false impression that its full-length courses were responsible for their success.The authority held that this non-disclosure amounted to a misleading advertisement under Section 2(28)(iv) of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, and violated consumers’ fundamental right to be informed under Section 2(9) of the same Act.