‘UGC-NET paper leaked on Darknet’: Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan on cancellation of exam

Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday revealed that the UGC-NET examination paper was leaked on Darknet, leading to its cancellation.

“Soon after it was clear that the UGC-NET question paper on Dark Net matches the original question paper of UGC-NET, we decided to cancel the examination,” Pradhan said at a briefing.

The Education Ministry on Wednesday cancelled the UGC-NET examination, held in June and December every year to determine the eligibility of Indian nationals for the award of Junior Research Fellowship, appointment as assistant professors, and admission to PhD in Indian universities and colleges.

“On June 19, 2024, the University Grants Commission (UGC) received certain inputs from the National Cyber Crime Threat Analytics Unit of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Ministry of Home Affairs on the Examination. These inputs prima facie indicate that the integrity of the aforesaid examination may have been compromised,” the ministry had said.

The opposition parties including the Congress have been up in arms against the Modi government, which took oath on June 9, over the allegations of irregularities in competitive examinations.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged that the educational institutions have been captured by the BJP, further accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of ‘facilitating’ it. “I have spoken about institutional capture in various organizations. This is happening in the education institutions. The reason behind paper leaks is that all the Vice Chancellors, the education system has been captured by the BJP and its parent organisation (RSS),” Gandhi had said at a briefing earlier on Thursday.

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Responding to Gandhi's charges, the Union minister said,"I will again appeal to my opposition friends to have faith in our system... Our government is 100 per cent committed to transparency, to the betterment of the future of our students. And I assure you again, no malpractice, no irregularity will be tolerated by our government."