The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Sunday said it will re-conduct the University Grants Commission National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET) exams for English, commerce and sociology, after a panel found a raft of factual, typographical and translation errors in the question papers, which also repeated portions from previous examinations.
The announcement, which impacts more than 157,000 candidates, comes months after the premier testing agency scrapped the May 3 NEET-UG examination after a paper leak. That cancellation affected 2.2 million students and sparked nationwide protests, including the Jantar Mantar agitation in Delhi that eventually prompted then Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan to step down.
“The Committee found that the three papers had many factual, typographical, translation errors including misspelt names of prominent scholars, garbled book titles, errors in the stem wording of questions, grammatical errors, gender and number agreement errors, punctuation mistakes, and non-standard coined terms for established concepts,” NTA said in the notice, adding that the retests will be held on September 9 and 10.
An official aware of the matter said “14 questions” in the English paper were repeated from the December 2024 cycle. The education ministry did not respond to emails and phone calls requesting comment on the matter.
Allegations of NET paper leaks
UGC-NET determines eligibility for Junior Research Fellowships (JRF), assistant professor posts and PhD admissions. The exam is usually held twice a year, in June and December.
The decision follows complaints from candidates about errors and repeated questions in the three papers. Several sociology candidates also alleged that a 100-page PDF containing handwritten questions circulated before the June 30 examination, with nearly 90 questions and answer options matching the actual paper, HT reported on July 9.
“The sociology paper had spelling, translation and typographical errors. At least 14 questions in the English question paper were repeated from the December 2024 examination paper. The case with commerce was similar,” said a person familiar with the matter. The paper has 150 questions.
“Instead of dropping more than a dozen questions in each subject and keeping students concerned over repeated questions, NTA has decided to re-conduct the examinations of these three subjects,” the person said.
This is the second time UGC-NET papers are being cancelled in three years. In 2024, NTA scrapped the entire exam on June 19, a day after it was conducted, after intelligence inputs indicated that the question paper had been leaked. The government then handed the matter to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which later found that the purported leaked-paper screenshot was doctored and reported no evidence of an actual paper leak.
Students criticise NTA for lapses
NTA on Sunday moved to assure that the reschedule would not delay the allocation of JRF seats or of documents that certify the eligibility of candidates for assistant professor posts or PhD admissions in the subjects.
However, candidates criticised NTA’s move and pointed out that they would have to prepare for the exam afresh, adding that travelling to their allocated centres was an additional expense. Some students also pointed out that the retest date was days after the Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET), to be held on September 6.
“What happened with the paper is not my fault, but because of NTA and its systemic failure. Why should we face these problems?” said a candidate from Jhargram, West Bengal, who appeared for the UGC-NET English paper. It was his sixth attempt.
He said he travelled nearly 450km to Burdwan and was now preparing for CTET and other examinations, making it “difficult to refocus” on the UGC-NET retest.
How is the NTA paper set?
NTA’s question-paper preparation involves multiple stages, with separate experts handling question-writing, moderation, vetting and translation.
Subject panels comprising faculties prepare a large question bank, from which moderators select questions for multiple sets. Vetters independently solve the sets and discrepancies are resolved before finalisation. The questions are then translated in various regional languages and back-translated to English to check for accuracy. Multiple sets are subsequently generated through randomisation, printed, packed and kept in secure storage until the examination.
The process is conducted in NTA’s Delhi office, where subject experts work in isolation for about a week; they surrender mobile phones and other digital devices on entry, while security personnel monitor their movement and reference material is provided within the premises.
The English paper will now be held on September 9 from 9am to noon, followed by commerce from 3pm to 6pm the same day. Sociology will be held on September 10 from 9am to noon.
Candidates appearing for the retest will not be required to pay an additional examination fee. NTA will notify the examination city, centre and admit card details separately on its official websites. The three-hour examination comprises 150 multiple-choice questions carrying 300 marks.
Candidates and coaching centres flag errors
In the sociology paper, candidates flagged several spelling errors, including “Ritzer” appearing as “Putzer”, “Ghurye” as “Ghunye”, “Parsons” as “Parsow” and “Nussbaum” as “Nusbaut”, among others.
In English and commerce, candidates and coaching teachers alleged that several questions were repeated from earlier UGC-NET cycles, particularly December 2024 and 2025.
In the English paper, questions were reportedly lifted verbatim, including those on the publication year of the novel Kanthapura, the author of The Life Divine, genre-based classifications such as The Time Machine and Brave New World, and “Match the Following” questions involving critics such as Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes. Questions on the chronology of William Shakespeare’s plays and specialised literary concepts such as “Ecocriticism” and “the Flâneur” were also repeated, with the multiple-choice options in the same sequence.
In commerce, repeated questions included specific corporate tax provisions such as arm’s-length pricing and TDS provisions under sections 194C and 194F, as well as accounting questions using identical numerical data for break-even analysis and Margin of Safety. Questions on capital structure theories, including the Modigliani-Miller Hypothesis, and the extended 7 Ps of service marketing were also reportedly repeated with the same multiple-choice sequences.
The NEET paper leak forced an institutional overhaul of NTA.
Overhaul of NTA
The agency is rebuilding its institutional capacity and reducing dependence on contractual and outsourced manpower in line with the Radhakrishnan committee’s recommendations submitted in October 2024. Through various recruitment notifications between May 15 and August 6, NTA invited applications for 22 posts including for roles specialised leadership roles covering cybersecurity; test-centre operations; and vigilance, investigation and forensics.
NTA on July 25 also floated a ₹7.5 crore tender to hire a professional security agency for round-the-clock security services at its headquarters on Delhi’s Minto Road, regional offices in Okhla and other notified locations.
NTA conducts UGC-NET twice a year in 87 subjects in computer-based test (CBT) mode. The agency on Sunday released provisional answer keys for 84 subjects, the results of which will be declared as scheduled.
For the three re-conducted subjects, the number of candidates qualifying for assistant professorship will be 6% of those who appeared in the June examination or the re-examination, “whichever is higher”.
NTA also said that after the retest, the numbers already allocated for each subject “shall not be reduced under any circumstances”.
