‘Won’t hesitate in taking action’: Education ministry after UGC-NET cancelled.

The Centre cancelled the UGC-NET examination on Wednesday. The Ministry of Education on Thursday said that the UGC-NET examination was cancelled as there was a chance that it had been compromised. “9 lakh students had participated in the UGC-NET exam that the NTA conducted on June 18… The ministry saw that there was a chance that the examination had been compromised. The ministry has decided to cancel the examination. The next date will be declared soon. The matter has been referred to the CBI,” Govind Jaiswal, joint secretary, Ministry of education, said at a briefing. “No complaints were received about the exam but a suo motu action was taken on the basis of inputs available with them to protect students’ interest,” he said. The ministry official said it won’t hesitate in taking action against those guilty. Jaiswal said the details of the inputs cannot be shared as the matter has been referred to the CBI and is currently under investigation. “A fresh date for the exam will be announced soon,” he added. On Wednesday, the education ministry in a notification announced that it had decided to cancel the UGC-NET examination, saying the ‘integrity of the process may have been compromised’. UGC chairman M Jagadesh Kumar had said that 81 per cent of 11.21 lakh candidates had appeared for the examination across the country. The examination is conducted to determine the eligibility of Indian nationals for ‘Assistant Professor’ as well as ‘Junior Research Fellowship and Assistant Professor’ in Indian universities and colleges. The UGC-NET is conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) in Computer-Based Test (CBT) mode. After the examination was cancelled, opposition parties launched an all out attack on the Narendra Modi government. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said in a post on X,”How the Modi government has ruined the country’s education and recruitment system — Paper leaks, fraud and gross irregularities in NEET, UGC-NET, CUET (Common University Entrance Test) have now been exposed. The much-publicised NRA – National Recruitment Agency is completely defunct.”