UGC-NET 2025 Exam Cancelled

The cancellation of the UGC-NET examination was announced by the Ministry of Education on June 19, Wednesday. The instruction from the Ministry of Home Affairs suggests that the purity of the examination has been compromised. According to the sources, the input contained information about leaks, links, a brief, and screenshots, including a leaked sample paper that was matched by the Education Ministry with other details. The exam paper was being sold for Rs. 5,000 on Telegram and has asked the Education Ministry to act on it. Before getting the cancellation order, the opposition raised the issue that why NEET had not been canceled. Meanwhile, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharage said on Twitter that, “Cancellation of UGC-NET exam is a victory of the spirit of millions of students“, adding that this was a defeat to the “arrogance of the Modi Government”. He stated that the Education Minister had earlier said that there was no paper leak in NEET. “When arrests are made of education mafia in Bihar, Gujarat, and Haryana, the Education Minister accepts that some scan has taken place. When will the NEET exam be cancelled? He asked.

CBI registered a Case

On Thursday, the CBI registered a case against unknown accused persons under Section 120B and 420 of the IPC based on a complaint received on 20.06.2024 from the secretary, Department of Education, Government of India. CBI said in press release that ,” The complaint alleged that on 19.06.2024, the University Grants Commission (UGC) received inputs from the National Cyber Crime Threat Analysis Unit of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs indicating that the integrity of the UGC-NET 2024 Examination, conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) in two shifts across different cities, may have been compromised.”

UGC NET Cybercrime Threat

As per the ministry, input regarding UGC NET was received from the national cybercrime threat analytic unit of Indian cybercrime coordination centre. This however does not specify if exams purity were compromised or not. But as per sources which stated that regularity was detected in some examination center's. On June 18, 2024 a total of 9 Lakh students participated in the UGC net exam that is always conducted by NTA. UGC chairman Mr. Jagdish Kumar said that 81% of the 11.21 Lakh register candidates have appeared for the examination across 317 cities. This exam determined the eligibility of Indian students for the roles of “Assistant Professor “ and “ Junior Research Fellowship(JRF) “ in Indian Universities and Colleges. The new exam date will be announced later as the matter has been referred to the CBI, stated Joint Secretary Govind Jaiswal (ministry of education). The UGC-NET consists of two papers: a subject-specific paper based on the candidates' areas of expertise and a common first paper for all candidates. Offerings for the second paper include 83 subjects. The combined length of the two papers is three hours, and they contain multiple-choice (MCQ) questions of the objective kind. There are 50 questions in Paper 1 and 100 questions in Paper 2. The exam does not have negative marking. While an exam in pen and paper or OMR format can be finished in a single day, either in one or two shifts, computer-based exams are administered over a period of several days in multiple shifts. In order to make it easier to choose more test venues in rural areas, NTA officials told The Indian Express that the decision was reached to hold both the UGC-NET and the CUET-UG (partially) in pen and paper format in June 2024. Government critics included the Congress, which called the cancellation a defeat of the arrogance of the Modi government. The cancellation, according to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharage, was a victory of the spirit of millions of students.