NTA to conduct CUET-UG retest for over 1000 candidates on July 19, no clarity on results yet

New Delhi: The National Testing Agency (NTA) has decided to conduct a retest for over 1000 candidates of CUET UG on July 19.

The NTA had on July 7 released the provisional answer key of Common University Entrance Test (CUET)-UG 2024 and announced that it will conduct a retest for CUET UG candidates between July 15 and 19 if any grievance raised by students about the conduct of the exam is found to be correct.

While the agency notified the retest schedule on Sunday, it remained silent on the declaration of the result which has already been delayed by over two weeks with the final answer key not yet notified.

The delay in CUET-UG results comes amid a raging row over alleged irregularities in competitive exams, including NEET and NET.

According to NTA sources, the distribution of question papers in language not opted by the candidates is one of the reasons for the retest and the 1000-odd candidates are spread across six states.

"Some of the grievances include time loss due to distribution of wrong question paper," a source said.

A total of 250 candidates of the 1,000 CUET-UG aspirants for whom the NTA is conducting the retest are from Oasis Public School in Hazaribagh, which is also under scanner for the alleged leak of NEET-UG question paper.

According to the official notification issued on Sunday, the grievances received from candidates up to June 30, 2024, regarding the CUET (UG) 2024 exam as well as the complaints sent to rescuetug@nta.ac.in between July 7-9 (before 05:00 P.M.) have been reviewed.

"Based on these grievances, a re-examination will be conducted for those affected candidates on July 19, 2024, in the Computer-Based Test (CBT) mode," the notification said.

Distribution of the wrong question paper also happened during the NEET-UG exam conducted on May 5, due to which NTA granted grace marks due to loss of time.

However, the agency, following protests and litigation in the Supreme Court, cancelled the grace marks and announced an optional retest for the 1,563 candidates of which 813 attended the exam on June 23.

Originally, results for the undergraduate admission test were scheduled to be released on June 30 but the NTA delayed the results as it grappled with paper leak allegations involving NEET-UG, UGC-NET, and CSIR-UGC-NET.

"Initially it was decided that the results would be announced for the rest of the candidates before the retest and subsequently for the rest. However, we are now yet to take a final call on the same,” a source said.

The CUET-UG exam conducted in a hybrid mode for the first time across the country was cancelled in Delhi a night before the scheduled exam day, citing logistical reasons. The exam was conducted in the national capital later.

The NTA had earlier announced that the third edition of CUET-UG will be completed in seven days and there will be no normalisation of scores as all exams will be conducted in a single shift.

For 15 subjects, the tests were in pen-paper mode and for the other 48 subjects, the exam was held in computer-based mode.

Over 13.4 lakh candidates registered for the common entrance test for admission to undergraduate courses in 261 central, state, deemed and private universities this year.

In the first edition of the exam in 2022, the test was plagued by technical glitches. Also, as a result of tests for a subject being conducted over multiple shifts, the scores had to be normalised during the announcement of results.