The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Tuesday cancelled the University Grants Commission-National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET) June 2024 examination conducted in two shifts across India on June 18, saying the exam’s integrity had been “compromised”.

The matter has been handed over to the CBI for a thorough investigation, officials said.

The NTA said a fresh examination shall be conducted. Around 908,000 candidates had appeared for the UGC-NET June 2024 for the award of Junior Research Fellowships and entry into PhD programme and for gaining appointments as assistant professors. The exam was conducted in 83 subjects, the NTA said.

The agency said the UGC had on Tuesday received “certain inputs” from the National Cyber Crime Threat Analysis Unit of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, indicating that the integrity of the examination had been compromised.

“To ensure the highest level of transparency and sanctity of the examination process, the Union education ministry has decided that the UGC-NET June 2024 examination be cancelled,” the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday night.

The NTA — a government agency responsible for conducting exams for entrance into engineering, medical, management and other courses, besides the UGC-NET exam, has been under scrutiny in recent days for alleged irregularities in the NEET 2024, the nationwide entrance exam for medical colleges.

On Monday, the NTA had issued a press release announcing that it had successfully conducted the UGC-NET June 2024 examination. The education ministry did not specify details of what information the cyber crime unit had obtained or how the examination had been compromised.