Fresh off the heels of the national uproar over NEET-UG, a massive new controversy has hit the National Testing Agency (NTA). Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, has publicly alleged that the UGC-NET Sociology question paper was leaked and sold across multiple states for a staggering ₹2.25 lakh.
The widespread allegations have reignited intense public debate surrounding the integrity of India’s national competitive exams, leaving thousands of aspiring educators and researchers deeply anxious about their future.
The ₹2.25 Lakh Leak Allegation: What We Know
In an explosive post on social media platform X, the Congress MP outlined a coordinated network operating across northern India. According to Gandhi, an exclusive 100-page internal document—accessible only within the NTA infrastructure—was leaked just hours before the June 30 exam.
”A 100-page PDF was circulated right before the UGC-NET exam,” Gandhi stated. “Nearly 90 questions in the PDF match those from the actual Sociology question paper. This exact paper was being sold for ₹2.25 lakh in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, and Rajasthan.”
Gandhi further alleged that this illicit network isn’t limited to a single test, claiming it also compromises other major national assessments, including the CSIR-NET, HTET, and ADA exams.
Supporting these claims, student leaders in Rohtak reportedly released video evidence showing a 100-question set that perfectly mirrored the actual exam paper distributed to candidates.
Spelling Disasters and AI Inaccuracies Shock Candidates
Beyond the structural leak allegations, the June 30 Sociology exam faces heavy criticism from candidates for abysmal quality control. Test-takers have flooded social platforms to highlight a chaotic array of spelling errors, broken grammar, and bizarrely phrased questions that severely disrupted their test-taking experience.
Prominent candidate and educator Antara Chakrabarty flagged several glaring errors where the names of foundational sociologists were completely butchered:
- George Ritzer was printed as “Putzer”
- Talcott Parsons appeared as “Parsow”
- G.S. Ghurye was written as “Ghunye”
- Martha Nussbaum became “Nusbaut”
- The word social was somehow printed as “oval”
”Fifty percent of the paper had terrible spelling errors and grammatically disastrous sentence formation,” another candidate shared online. “The paper asked AI-generated questions and cited random thinkers not even remotely associated with the official syllabus.”
Furthermore, candidates noticed that at least 67 out of the 150 questions appeared to be directly copied from a 2024 exam—without even shuffling the sequence of the multiple-choice answers.
Students Demand Accountability
The dual crisis of a suspected security breach and subpar question quality has left the student community frustrated and exhausted. Coming immediately after the recent NEET-UG paper leak scandals, student-led organizations are demanding systemic reforms, strict legal consequences for perpetrators, and a transparent explanation from the Education Ministry.
At the time of reporting, an official response from the National Testing Agency (NTA) regarding the Sociology paper leak claims and typographical errors is still awaited.
