The National Testing Agency (NTA) will conduct a retest for over 1,000 CUET UG candidates on July 19, 2024.
On July 7, 2024, the NTA released the provisional answer key for the Common University Entrance Test (CUET)-UG 2024. They also announced that a retest would be held between July 15 and 19, 2024 if any student grievances about the exam were found valid.
Although the retest schedule was notified on Sunday, July 14, 2024, the NTA has not yet announced the result date, which has already been delayed by more than two weeks, as the final answer key is still pending.
The CUET-UG result delay occurs amidst ongoing controversies over alleged irregularities in competitive exams, including NEET and NET.
According to NTA one reason for the retest is the distribution of question papers in a language not chosen by the candidates. These 1,000 candidates are spread across six states.
Out of the 1,000 CUET-UG candidates for whom the NTA is conducting a retest, 250 are from Oasis Public School in Hazaribagh, which is also under scrutiny for the alleged leak of NEET-UG question papers.
According to the official notification issued on Sunday, July 14, 2024, grievances received from candidates up to June 30, 2024, regarding the CUET (UG) 2024 exam, as well as complaints sent to rescuetug@nta.ac.in between July 7-9, 2024 before 05:00 P.M, have been reviewed.
The notification stated that based on these grievances, a re-examination will be conducted for the affected candidates on July 19, 2024, in the Computer-Based Test (CBT) mode.
The distribution of the wrong question paper also occurred during the NEET-UG exam on May 5, 2024 for which the NTA initially granted grace marks due to the loss of time.
However, following protests and litigation in the Supreme Court, the agency canceled the grace marks and announced an optional retest for the 1,563 affected candidates, of whom 813 attended the exam on June 23, 2024.
Originally, the undergraduate admission test results were scheduled to be released on June 30, 2024 but the NTA delayed the results as it dealt with paper leak allegations involving NEET-UG, UGC-NET, and CSIR-UGC-NET.
The CUET-UG exam, conducted in a hybrid mode for the first time nationwide, was canceled in Delhi the night before the scheduled exam day due to logistical reasons. The exam was later conducted in the national capital.
The NTA had previously announced that the third edition of CUET-UG would be completed in seven days, with no score normalization since all exams would be conducted in a single shift.
For 15 subjects, the tests were in pen-and-paper mode, while for the other 48 subjects, the exam was held in computer-based mode.
In 2024, over 13.4 lakh candidates registered for the common entrance test for admission to undergraduate courses in 261 central, state, deemed, and private universities.
In the first edition of the exam in 2022, there were technical glitches. Additionally, because tests for a subject were conducted over multiple shifts, the scores had to be normalized when the results were announced.
