Rajasthan SET-2026: Students Protest and Boycott Exam in Jaipur Over Delayed Papers

Students walked out of a Rajasthan State Eligibility Test (SET-2026) centre in Jaipur on Sunday after alleging that question papers were distributed nearly 30 minutes after the scheduled start, triggering protests and a boycott over what they described as serious exam irregularities.

The disruption took place at Pink City Senior Secondary School on Bainar Road, where candidates said the exam was due to begin at 11am. They alleged that the question papers did not reach the centre until around 11.30am. Several candidates then left the centre and protested outside. The candidates also alleged that they were asked to either enter the examination hall and remain quiet or leave when they questioned officials about the delay.

Anita Lamba, one of the candidates, questioned whether the same leniency would be extended to students who reached an examination centre even a minute after the gate-closing time. "When we questioned the institution, they threatened us, saying that if we wanted to give the exam, we should go inside and sit quietly, or we could leave...This has been happening with children in the past, continues to happen, and will happen in the future," she told reporters.

The situation escalated after candidates approached the police and raised their concerns with authorities present at the centre. Lamba said that after discussions with the police, the principal showed the candidates a notice stating that "the exam is being cancelled". "We have accepted the fact that the exam is cancelled," she said. However, there was no official notification confirming cancellation of the examination at the time of reporting.

Another candidate, Sania Kaval, alleged that students were repeatedly asked to wait for five or 10 minutes as they waited for the question papers to arrive. When the papers eventually came, candidates were reportedly told that they would be given additional time to compensate for the delay. "The invigilator at my centre was an 11th-grade student; she was signing papers as clumsily as a toddler might scribble. We asked why the paper hadn't arrived by 11:00 AM, and they told us it was on the way, asking us to wait for five minutes, then another ten minutes. The paper still didn't arrive, and when it came ten minutes late, they said we would get extra time...we want the cancelled exam to be held again, and second, we want this centre to be cancelled," she told ANI.

Candidates said they ultimately agreed to appear for the examination after raising their concerns with the authorities. However, the delay and the manner in which the situation was handled led to a boycott by students at the centre.

The Jaipur episode comes against a wider backdrop of repeated complaints over the conduct of competitive and government recruitment examinations in India. Delayed papers, question-paper leaks, impersonation, technical failures and allegations of administrative lapses have repeatedly led to cancellations, re-examinations and protests by aspirants.

The Rajasthan Eligibility Examination for Teachers (REET) has previously been hit by question-paper leak allegations and other irregularities, while the state has also seen recruitment examinations disrupted by paper leaks and cheating allegations. The Rajasthan Police constable recruitment examination, for instance, had a paper leak controversy in 2022, leading authorities to cancel the affected paper and order a re-examination. For the SET candidates in Jaipur, the immediate demand is for clarity on whether Sunday's examination will stand or be cancelled. They have also demanded that the Bainar Road centre be removed from future examinations and that the test be conducted again if it is formally cancelled.