NTA admits 'defects' in 3 UGC-NET papers, orders re-tests in September: All you need to know

The National Testing Agency (NTA) has ordered fresh re-tests for three UGC-NET examinations conducted in June 2026—English, Sociology, and Commerce.

The English exam will be held from 9 AM to 12 PM (Shift 1) on September 9, while the Commerce paper will be conducted on the same day from 3 PM to 6 PM (Shift 2). The Sociology exam will be held on September 10 from 9 AM to 12 PM (Shift 1).

Notably, this will be the second re-test that the NTA will be conducting after the NEET-UG 2026 exam, in which aspirants' May 2026 attempt was later cancelled due to alleged paper leaks, after which the exam was re-conducted in June.

It admitted in a statement that the UGC-NET papers—conducted across 87 subjects from June 22-30—had multiple errors that were too big to be ignored, due to which it had decided to re-conduct these exams and set up a committee to probe the issues.

The 2026 UGC-NET exams were for recruitments to the posts of Assistant Professors and Junior Research Fellowships (JRFs), as well as PhD admissions.

"Papers carrying such defects do not meet the standards of fairness and error-free examination, and defects of this extent cannot be cured merely by dropping questions after the challenge process," the NTA statement read, adding that no additional exam fees would be levied from aspirants for the re-test.

The NTA committee reported that the three papers had not only typographical errors, but also factual and translation mistakes as well. Repetitions from past papers and the possible use of AI were also flagged as major issues.

For example, in the Sociology paper, students had flagged names like 'Ritzer' appearing as 'Putzer', 'Parsons' as 'Parsow', and 'AR Desai' as 'AK Desai', among many others, a Times of India report said.

In the case of English, 67 of 150 questions were the exact same ones from the December 2024 English paper, while the Commerce paper saw 80 repetitions.

"Allocation of JRF seats and issuance of e-certificates for eligibility for Assistant Professor and for admission to PhD for these 84 subjects will not be delayed due to re-conduct of the examination for the three subjects," the NTA noted.

It then explained that the number of candidates qualifying for assistant professor eligibility will be 6 per cent of either those who appeared in the June 2026 test or the re-test—whichever is higher.

"After the retest, the numbers already allocated for each subject shall not be reduced under any circumstances," the NTA added, noting that the subject-wise allocation for the remaining three subjects for JRF, eligibility for assistant professor and eligibility for admission to PhD will be done as mentioned in the Information Bulletin.

It is now yet to be seen if this re-test causes a political stir as the NEET-UG re-test did weeks ago, which led to the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the implementation of a number of paper leak reforms, and the formation of a Nandan Nilekani-led panel to help improve the NTA.