UGC-NET Exam Under Cloud Amid Fresh Paper Leak Allegations

The latest allegations come at a time when the NEET-UG paper leak had triggered a major political storm and forced govt to promise stricter safeguards in high-stakes exams

NEW DELHI: The National Testing Agency (NTA) is under fresh scrutiny after allegations of another paper leak, this time in the UGC-NET June 2026 exam. This comes barely weeks after the NEET-UG paper leak and complaints of glaring errors and typos in the NET papers. The education ministry has asked NTA to get to the bottom of allegations that a 100-page PDF, allegedly linked to the setting of the UGC-NET sociology paper, was circulated before the exam and that nearly 90 questions in it matched the actual paper, sources said. NTA officials did not respond to calls and messages till the filing of this report.

PDF related to question paper setting surfaced before exam, says Rahul

The controversy escalated Wednesday after leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi attacked govt over the alleged irregularities. Sharing a media report on X, Gandhi claimed the PDF related to the question paper setting, which should be available only with NTA, had surfaced before the exam. “The serious allegations that have surfaced regarding last week’s UGCNET exam are utterly shocking. Just a few weeks after the NEET paper leak, reports are now emerging that a 100-page PDF was circulated right before the UGC-NET exam,” he said. He alleged the question paper was being sold for Rs 2.25 lakh in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi and Rajasthan, and claimed the same network had also offered to provide papers for upcoming exams such as CSIR-NET, HTET and ADA. The latest allegations come at a time when the NEET-UG paper leak had triggered a major political storm and forced govt to promise stricter safeguards in high-stakes exams. More recently, candidates who appeared for UGC-NET sociology alleged that the paper contained multiple spelling errors, distorted names of key thinkers and poor Hindi translations, raising questions over quality checks in paper-setting and moderation. The UGC-NET is conducted by NTA for determining eligibility for assistant professorship, junior research fellowship, admission to PhD programmes.