New Delhi: The National Testing Agency (NTA) will re-conduct the UGC-NET June 2026 examinations for English, Commerce and Sociology after multiple errors were found in the question papers, with highly placed sources also confirming concerns over the answer keys of the three subjects.
The re-examinations will be held on September 9 and 10, NTA said in a public notice issued on August 16. The English paper will be conducted on September 9 from 9 am to 12 noon, while Commerce will be held the same day from 3 pm to 6 pm. The Sociology paper will be re-conducted on September 10 from 9 am to 12 noon.
Sources told ETEducation that various issues in the answer keys of the three subjects were also flagged, adding to concerns over the conduct and evaluation of the examination.
NTA had constituted a committee after receiving several complaints regarding the three papers. The committee found multiple factual, typographical and translation errors, including misspelt names of prominent scholars, garbled book titles, errors in the wording of questions, grammatical errors, gender and number agreement errors, punctuation mistakes and non-standard coined terms for established concepts.
The committee also found that a significant number of questions had been repeated from papers administered previously.
Based on these findings, the committee recommended that the three papers be conducted afresh to ensure a fair and error-free examination.
NTA said the extent of the defects meant that the three papers did not meet the required standards of fairness and accuracy and that the problems could not be resolved merely by dropping questions after the challenge process.
UGC-NET re-exam schedule
The UGC-NET June 2026 examination was 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.
The three affected subjects will now be re-conducted as follows:
| Subject | Date | Shift | Time |
| Sociology | September 10, 2026 | Shift 1 | 9 am to 12 noon |
| English | September 9, 2026 | Shift 1 | 9 am to 12 noon |
| Commerce | September 9, 2026 | Shift 2 | 3 pm to 6 pm |
Candidates appearing for the three papers will not have to pay an additional examination fee. NTA said details regarding examination cities, centres and admit cards will be notified separately.
Results of 84 subjects to proceed as scheduled
The re-conduct will not delay the result processing for the remaining 84 subjects.
NTA said results for these subjects, for which the answer-key challenge process was issued earlier on August 16, will be declared as per schedule. Allocation of JRF seats and issuance of e-certificates for Assistant Professor eligibility and PhD admission for these 84 subjects will also not be delayed because of the re-examination.
For the three subjects being re-conducted, the number of candidates qualifying for Assistant Professor eligibility will be equal to 6% of the candidates who appeared in the June 2026 examination or the re-test, whichever is higher, NTA said.
Subject-wise allocation for JRF, Assistant Professor eligibility and PhD admission in English, Commerce and Sociology will be carried out as prescribed in the information bulletin.
NTA has further clarified that the numbers already allocated for each of the three subjects will not be reduced under any circumstances after the re-test.
The agency has advised candidates to rely only on official communications issued through the NTA and UGC-NET websites.
