NTA Orders UGC-NET Re-Test For English, Commerce, Sociology Over Question Paper Errors

New Delhi: The National Testing Agency (NTA) has ordered a fresh sitting of the UGC-NET June 2026 exam for 3 subjects after finding major problems in the original question papers. The candidates who appeared for English, Commerce and Sociology will now have to reappear in September, with no extra fee to pay.

The decision followed multiple complaints from examinees about mistakes across the 3 papers. The NTA set up a committee to review the concerns, and the findings led the agency to scrap the earlier tests rather than try to salvage them through post-exam corrections.

The NTA confirmed that the re-test will not hold up results for the other 84 subjects. The results, along with JRF seat allocations and e-certificates for Assistant Professor eligibility and PhD admission, will be declared as planned.

Errors Ranged From Typos To Repeated Questions

According to the NTA, the review committee identified several factual, typographical and translation errors in the English, Commerce and Sociology papers. The list of issues was extensive, which included misspelled names of prominent scholars, garbled book titles, problems in question stems, grammatical mistakes, errors in gender and number agreement, punctuation mistakes and the use of non-standard coined terms for established concepts.

The panel also flagged another serious lapse, which was the repetition of a number of questions that had been asked in previous UGC-NET editions.

In a post on X on August 16, the NTA noted that the June 2026 examination had been conducted from June 22 to 30 across 87 subjects, for the award of Junior Research Fellowship (JRF), eligibility for Assistant Professor, and admission to PhD programmes.

Re-Exam Dates Announced For September

The committee recommended that the 3 papers be conducted again to ensure a fair and accurate process, given the scale of the defects. The NTA has accepted the recommendation and announced new dates.

As per the information, English will be held on September 9, in Shift 1 from 9 am to 12 noon, Commerce will follow the same day in Shift 2 from 3 pm to 6 pm, while Sociology is scheduled for September 10, in Shift 1 from 9 am to 12 noon.

The NTA stated that papers containing defects of such extent do not meet the required standards of fairness and accuracy. The agency added that such issues cannot be adequately addressed merely by dropping questions following the answer-key challenge process.

No Extra Fee, Results For Other Subjects Unaffected

The candidates appearing for the re-examination will not be required to pay any additional examination fee. The NTA stated that details regarding examination city, examination centre and admit cards will be notified separately through the official NTA website, and candidates should keep checking for updates.

Importantly, the re-conduct will not delay the rest of the cycle, as the results for the 84 subjects for which the Answer Key Challenge (AKC) was issued earlier will be declared as per schedule. The allocation of JRF seats and the issuance of e-certificates for eligibility for Assistant Professor and admission to PhD programmes for candidates in these 84 subjects will also proceed without delay because of the re-examination of English, Commerce and Sociology.

Meanwhile, the announcement brought both relief that the errors will be corrected and the stress of preparing once again for thousands of aspirants who sat the affected papers. The NTA has urged all concerned candidates to monitor the website regularly for further updates on centres and admit cards.