For seven years, Kirti Malik waited for Haryana to advertise assistant professor posts in English. So when the 30-year-old learned she had cleared the Haryana Public Service Commission’s subject knowledge test, the relief was overwhelming.
“I was on cloud nine,” she says. “I kept calling my parents, my PhD supervisor. I just didn’t know how to feel.”
A government job had always been the dream. Having cleared the examination and finding herself among the shortlisted candidates, Malik was confident she would finally secure one.
Little did she know that four months later, on May 12, the Punjab and Haryana High Court would quash the recruitment process for 613 posts in the state Higher Education Department because it had not been conducted in line with UGC regulations.
“It was shattering,” says Malik, who had first qualified for the UGC-NET in June 2019, missing the Junior Research Fellowship by one question, and secured her JRF a year later. Over the years, she cleared the NET five times while working full-time at three different private institutions, often staying up past midnight to study.
“For them, it might be just another recruitment, but for us, it is life-changing.”
Malik’s experience is far from unique. Over the years, lakhs of students and job aspirants have seen examinations cancelled or recruitment drives scrapped due to paper leaks or procedural lapses. For many, the consequences extend far beyond delayed careers, leaving behind anxiety and self-doubt.
Paper leak as a personal failure
The stakes attached to competitive exams extend well beyond a career milestone.
“The end goal is belongingness to what the society around you considers worthwhile,” says Dr Itisha Nagar, a Delhi-based psychologist. “It’s a stamp of legitimacy.”
Around 22 lakh medical aspirants appeared for the NEET examination on May 3, which was cancelled following a paper leak. (Generated using AI)
So, for some students, such setbacks can be devastating. Among the 22 lakh medical aspirants who appeared for the NEET examination on May 3, which was later cancelled amid allegations of a paper leak, was 18-year-old Akanksha Chaturvedi of Madhya Pradesh. Her family says she was optimistic about clearing the exam this time, but was not sure she would do as well in a retest, and failing that, whether her family, which had taken a Rs 3 lakh loan for her coaching, would be able to fund her a second time. “I no longer have the courage to take the NEET exam again. “I am sorry, Mom and Dad. I have ruined everything,” she wrote in her final letter.
Nagar says she has seen a similar pattern among vulnerable youngsters.
The thought process shifts from “I have been failed, or I have been disappointed” to “I have disappointed, and I have failed,” she says. “For a child for whom this seat was a legitimacy of his existence and his being in the eyes of his loved ones, if it’s taken away from him, no matter the context … the distinction between ‘I have failed myself’ or ‘I have been failed by the others around me’ gets blurred.”
Nagar, however, makes a distinction. Not every student collapses inward. “Many children, with the help of teachers, parents, and support structures, are able to channel their anger,” she says. That anger, she points out, sometimes finds its way onto the streets, as seen in recent protests by student groups demanding accountability. “But the kids who are vulnerable, lonely, without perceived support, they fall through the cracks.”
A shock to the system
For some candidates, the cancellation or scrapping of a recruitment process comes after years of sacrifice.Chehak Bansal, 25, had also cleared the subject knowledge test for Home Science. With only 20 candidates qualifying for 23 vacancies, she was confident of securing a government job. “It felt like finally the struggle had come to an end. Finally, the years we have given to academia, to the books are finally worth it,” she says. “My parents were happy that maybe, finally, one of our kids will get settled.”
Then came a call from a fellow candidate. “She said that our vacancies got quashed. I thought no, that’s not happening. Then there was a panic. I sat and cried for some time,” she recalls.
For many candidates the re-scheduling comes in the way of preperation for other exams. Monish Bhardwaj and Satvik Bhardwaj from Panchkula appeared for NEET and thought the exam was well and truly in the rear view mirror, and they had done, but are now finding it difficult to mentally reconcile with the idea of appearing the same exam again. “The boys were preparing for other entrance tests as a back-up option. These exams have a different syllabus and format, and so my sons are struggling to give adequate preperation time to the upcoming tests and re-test,” says their mother Hema Sharma.
Rahul Ranjan, 34, a PhD research scholar who has been preparing for UPSC and UGC examinations for the last few years, says these examinations become so consuming that people begin organising major life decisions around them.
Students, who have already spent months preparing for an exam, are unsure if they can put the same effort once again. (Generated using AI)
Ranjan had been preparing for UPSC since 2016 and appeared for the UGC NET 2024 exam after taking a three-month break from his teaching job at a private institution. “I prepared really well for the exam, as this was my last chance to be eligible for JRF,” he says. “Within two to three hours after the exam was over, everybody knew the exam had been leaked. It was such an embarrassment for the NTA.
The retest came at a difficult point in his life. “My family was pressuring me to get married. I could not prepare as well for the retest. The same was also true for my friend… Her parents had given her an ultimatum – after this examination, she would have to get married. She did not get the opportunity to prepare for the retest.”
‘Faith in meritocracy is crumbling’
Jitendra Ahuja, head of department at Vidya Mandir Classes, a Delhi-based coaching institute, says the stress is overwhelming. “They (students) feel that no matter how hard they work, they don’t know what will happen. The uncertainty is terrifying.”
Some students, he says, are beginning to believe that success depends less on merit than on access. “Faith in meritocracy is crumbling.”
Anil Kumar Verma of Lucknow, whose daughter, Sejal, has been preparing for NEET for two years, agrees.“After working so hard, students are feeling hopeless,” he says. “We had a lot of trust in the NTA. Cancelling an exam after a leak is fine. But they should try to ensure that this doesn’t happen again because children’s future depends on them.”
No end in sight
While Malik waits on an appeal, the emotional toll has been relentless. “It has been a lot,” she says. “All of us have been just holding our breath.”
She knows candidates who prepared through pregnancy and now face the prospect of appearing for it all over again. “Would they be able to do well in the next exam?”
A June 5 Indian Express investigation found that of 45 major paper leaks between 2002 and 2025, each affecting over 1 lakh candidates, only two led to convictions. Across those cases, just 18 out of 1,658 people arrested were convicted.
As investigations drag on, many aspirants are left grappling with a question that extends beyond any single examination.
“I wouldn’t know where to go from here,” says Malik.
Students protest against the NEET(UG) paper leak, in New Delhi. (Express photo by Shreya Singhai) 
Around 22 lakh medical aspirants appeared for the NEET examination on May 3, which was cancelled following a paper leak. (Generated using AI)
Students, who have already spent months preparing for an exam, are unsure if they can put the same effort once again. (Generated using AI)
Share
