The first session of the Indian Parliament since the completion of the Lok Sabha polls is going to begin on Monday as the opposition is gearing up to corner the government over the NEET paper leak scam.

This is the first session of the Parliament since PM Narendra Modi took oath for the third straight term.

The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) secured 293 seats in the polls with BJP scalping 240.

The INDIA opposition alliance bagged 234 seats with the Congress winning 99, a much better performance than predicted in the exit polls.

Paper leak

The parliament is beginning at a time amid the leakage of the  NEET-UG exam  paper.

While the government transferred the investigation into the  NEET-UG exam leak to the CBI, the federal agency is also probing the UGC-NET exam, which was held on June 18 this year and cancelled two days later on June 20, citing that its "integrity was compromised". The CBI registered an FIR in the matter.

Even as the controversy over NEET threatens to reach a boiling point, the Ministry of Education has cancelled the UGC-NET exam, conducted by the National Testing Agency, just a day after it was held.

Over 9 lakh candidates appeared for the exam, which is held for Assistant Professor recruitments in universities and colleges as well as to determine eligibility for junior research fellowships.

In a statement, the Education Ministry said the June exam of the University Grants Commission-National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET) was conducted on Tuesday in OMR (pen and paper) mode in two shifts across the country.

"On 19th June, 2024, the University Grants Commission (UGC) received certain inputs from National Cyber Crime Threat Analytics Unit of Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Ministry of Home Affairs on the Examination. These inputs prima facie indicate that the integrity of the aforesaid examination may have been compromised," it said.

The ministry said it was announcing the cancellation "to ensure the highest level of transparency and sanctity of the examination process".

There have been reports of the paper of the examination being leaked, but this was not confirmed by the ministry. It said only that the matter had been handed over to the CBI.

The UGC-NET is conducted twice every year, in June and December.