UGC NET: NTA orders September retest for Sociology, Commerce and English papers

NTA has announced a re-examination for three UGC-NET papers held in June after a committee found errors, including major issues with the question papers.NTA has announced the re-conduct of the UGC-NET June 2026 examination for three subjects -- English, Commerce and Sociology -- following complaints regarding multiple errors in the question papers.Following several complaints concerning the English, Commerce and Sociology papers, NTA constituted a committee to examine the reported issues.According to NTA, the committee found several factual, typographical and translation errors in the three papers.These included misspelled names of prominent scholars, garbled book titles, errors in question stems, grammatical mistakes, gender and number agreement errors, punctuation errors and non-standard coined terms for established concepts. The committee also noted the repetition of a significant number of questions that had been administered previously.UGC-NET June 2026: Re-conduct of English, Commerce & Sociology papersNTA conducted the UGC-NET June 2026 examination from 22 to 30 June 2026 across 87 subjects, for the award of Junior Research Fellowship, eligibility for Assistant Professor, and admission to PhD programmes. pic.twitter.com/lyX3UfCamQ— National Testing Agency (@NTA_Exams) August 16, 2026UGC-NET 2026: RE-EXAMINATION SCHEDULEIn view of the extent of the errors, the committee recommended that the three papers be re-conducted to ensure a fair and error-free examination process. NTA has accordingly decided to conduct the re-examination as per the following schedule:SubjectDateShiftTimingEnglishSeptember 9, 2026Shift 19:00 AM to 12:00 NoonCommerceSeptember 9, 2026Shift 23:00 PM to 6:00 PMSociologySeptember 10, 2026Shift 19:00 AM to 12:00 NoonNTA stated that papers containing defects of this extent do not meet the required standards of fairness and accuracy. Such issues, it added, cannot be adequately addressed merely by dropping questions following the answer-key challenge process.NO ADDITIONAL EXAMINATION FEECandidates appearing for the re-examination in English, Commerce and Sociology will not be required to pay any additional examination fee.Details regarding the examination city, examination centre and admit cards will be notified separately through the official NTA website.Results for 84 Subjects to Proceed as ScheduledThe re-examination of the three subjects will not affect the result processing for the remaining 84 subjects.NTA said that the results for the 84 subjects for which the Answer Key Challenge 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 not be delayed because of the re-examination of English, Commerce and Sociology.Candidates are advised to regularly check the official NTA website for further updates regarding the re-examination, examination centres and admit cards.- EndsPublished On: Aug 16, 2026 20:51 IST