NTA cancels 3 UGC-NET June 2026 Papers, Rahul seeks accountability
Hours after releasing the Provisional Answer Keys, the National Testing Agency (NTA) has announced to cancel and re-conduct three papers of the UGC NET June 2026 exams
UGC NET June 2026: Hours after releasing the Provisional Answer Keys, the National Testing Agency (NTA) announced to re-conduct three papers of the UGC NET June 2026 exams.
The three papers of UGC NET June 2026, the NTA has announced to re-conduct, are English, Commerce and Sociology.
In a notification dated Sunday August 16, 2026, the NTA cited “multiple complaints it received about the errors” in the three papers that forced it to re-conduct them.
The NTA said after receiving the complaints it formed a committee which after “investigations” found the three papers indeed had several errors.
“The Committee found that the three papers had many factual, typographical, translation errors including misspelled 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, as well as repetition of a significant number of questions previously administered”, the NTA said.
The NTA further said that the committee had advised it to re-conduct the exams.
“The Committee recommended that, in the interest of holding a fair and error-free examination, these three papers should be re-conducted”, the NTA said.
Rahul Gandhi seeks accountability
Following the NTA decision to cancel the UGC NET papers, Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi slammed the Modi government and demanded that the National Testing Agency’s leadership must be held accountable for it.
Writing on social media platform X, Rahul Gandhi alleged that “this is no longer an education system. It is an extraction machine”.
“Modi ji, look at what your NTA has just done. UGC-NET exams for Sociology, English and Commerce were held between 22 and 30 June. Nearly two months later, NTA has cancelled all three because it set faulty papers and repeated old questions,” he said.
Gandhi said thousands of candidates who prepared for years, filled forms, paid the fees, travelled to distant centres, must now do it all again in September.
“NTA makes the mistake but the student serves the sentence,” he said.
UGC-NET June 2026 Re-Exam Schedule
While announcing to cancel and re-conduct the three papers, the NTA also released the re-exam date and schedule. As per the NTA notification, the re-exam will be held as per the following schedule.
- English: September 09, 2026 Shift 1 - 09 AM to 12 Noon
- Commerce: September 09, 2026 Shift 02 - 03 PM to 6 PM
- Sociology: September 10, 2026 Shift 1 - 09 AM to 12 Noon
“Further details of city, centre, and admit card details will be notified separately on the official website”, the NTA said adding that no additional examination fee will be charged from the candidates of these three subjects for the re-conduct.
Was Sociologly Paper leaked?
Interestingly, there were reports that the UGC NET Sociology paper, which now stands cancelled, was leaked before the exam.
The issue of UGC NET paper leak was raised by Rahul Gandhi and others in July itself. The NTA, however, has so far not clarified and said anything about the paper leak.
The NTA in its latest notification released to announce the cancellation of the three papers also chose not to confirm or deny the claims of UGC NET Sociology paper leak.
More than a month later the NTA has now announced to cancel and re-conduct the UGC NET Sociology paper along with English and Commerce.
The cancellation of UGC NET comes months after the NTA announced to cancel NEET UG 2026 held in May 2026 following paper leaks. The move had sparked nationwide outrage leading to the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
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