TMC slams Centre for cancelling UGC-NET, demands Supreme Court-monitored probe

“The CBI probe will shield them. The UGC-NET has become a huge scam. A Supreme Court-monitored investigation is needed to expose this scam,” Ghosh said.

On Wednesday night, the MoE announced the cancellation of the UGC-NET a day after the exam was held, saying that inputs from the Ministry of Home Affairs had suggested that “the integrity of the examinations had been compromised”.

The ministry added that a fresh examination would be conducted.

UGC-NET is conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA).  “New scam in the market in the series of scams! Cancellation of UGC-NET due to compromised integrity of the examination! CBI enquiry has been ordered! Question is can they nab the HEAD?” West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu said in a post on X.

The BJP, meanwhile, criticised the TMC for speaking on matters related to the education sector, pointing out that several state ministers are in jail for their involvement in multiple scams.

“The TMC should look in the mirror. Cash worth crores was recovered from the house of former state minister Partha Chatterjee, who is in jail. Instead of targeting the Centre, political parties must welcome the Education Ministry’s move to scrap the exam and ask for a CBI probe after finding irregularities,” BJP MLA Sankar Ghosh said.

In a separate incident, Jadavpur University Teachers’ Association (JUTA) demanded the announcement of a new date for the cancelled UGC-NET exam.

“We demand that the exam be held with full transparency and proper infrastructure. A thorough investigation must be carried out to take action against those who are behind this,” said JUTA general secretary Partha Pratim Roy in a statement.