New Delhi, Aug. 17 -- The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Sunday said it will re-conduct the University Grants Commission National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET) exams for English, commerce and sociology, after a panel found a raft of factual, typographical and translation errors in the question papers, which also repeated portions from previous examinations. The announcement, which impacts more than 20,000 candidates, comes months after the premier testing agency scrapped the May 3 NEET-UG examination after a paper leak. That cancellation affected 2.2 million students and sparked nationwide protests, including the Jantar Mantar agitation in Delhi that eventually prompted then Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan to step down. "The Committee found that the three papers had many factual, typographical, translation errors including misspelt names of prominent scholars, garbled book titles, errors in the stem wording of questions, grammatical errors, gender and number agreement errors, punctuation mistakes, and non-standard coined terms for established concepts," NTA said in the notice, adding that the retests will be held on September 9 and 10. An official aware of the matter said "14 questions" in the English paper were repeated from the December 2024 cycle. The education ministry did not respond to emails and phone calls requesting comment on the matter. UGC-NET determines eligibility for Junior Research Fellowships (JRF), assistant professor posts and PhD admissions. The exam is usually held twice a year, in June and December. The decision follows complaints from candidates about errors and repeated questions in the three papers. Several sociology candidates also alleged that a 100-page PDF containing handwritten questions circulated before the June 30 examination, with nearly 90 questions and answer options matching the actual paper, HT reported on July 9. "The sociology paper had spelling, translation and typographical errors. At least 14 questions in the English question paper were repeated from the December 2024 examination paper. The case with commerce was similar," said a person familiar with the matter. The paper has 150 questions. "Instead of dropping more than a dozen questions in each subject and keeping students concerned over repeated questions, NTA has decided to re-conduct the examinations of these three subjects," the person said. This is the second time UGC-NET papers are being cancelled in three years. In 2024, NTA scrapped the entire exam on June 19, a day after it was conducted, after intelligence inputs indicated that the question paper had been leaked. The government then handed the matter to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which later found that the purported leaked-paper screenshot was doctored and reported no evidence of an actual paper leak. NTA on Sunday moved to assure that the reschedule would not delay the allocation of JRF seats or of documents that certify the eligibility of candidates for assistant professor posts or PhD admissions in the subjects. However, candidates criticised NTA's move and pointed out that they would have to prepare for the exam afresh, adding that travelling to their allocated centres was an additional expense. Some students also pointed out that the retest date was days after the Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET), to be held on September 6. "What happened with the paper is not my fault, but because of NTA and its systemic failure. Why should we face these problems?" said a candidate from Jhargram, West Bengal, who appeared for the UGC-NET English paper. It was his sixth attempt....