President Droupadi Murmu on Friday, gave her assent to a law raising the punishment for unfair means in public examinations, days after the Bill was pushed through the Lok Sabha by voice vote amid repeated disruptions, without proper debate on its provisions.
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With the Bill passed without a proper debate on its provisions, the opposition’s core objection, that speed and stricter punishment are no substitute for actually fixing how exams are conducted, remains unresolved even as the new law takes effect.
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The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Act, 2026 which has now been published in the official gazette rewrites section 10 of the 2024 Act, replacing a punishment scale of “three years but which may extend to five years and with fine up to ten lakh rupees” with a steeper term of “five years but which may extend up to ten years and with fine up to fifty lakh rupees.”
The Bill’s passage on July 29 was overshadowed by opposition protests over alleged police action against students demonstrating over National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) paper leaks, with Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi raising the issue before the debate on the Bill itself even began.
Gandhi later dismissed the legislation as grossly inadequate, saying it was “not even a band-aid” for an education system that needed “surgery.”
Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Derek O’Brien pushed back just as hard, accusing the government of running what he called a “BJP playbook: Introduce draconian bills like FCRA. Then bulldoze in Parliament with no debate.” He argued that when Parliament doesn’t get to function, the government ends up “accountable to no one.”
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Union minister Jitendra Singh, replying to the debate, accused the opposition of politicising the issue and defended the amendments as a necessary strengthening of the 2024 law.
He told the House that 52 first information reports (FIRs) were registered under the existing Act and claimed student suicides linked to exams had declined since it came into force.
The government held its position that repeated leaks in recruitment and entrance exams over the past two years exposed the 2024 law’s penalties as too weak to deter organised cheating networks.
President Murmu’s assent came within days of Parliament clearing the Bill, bringing the amended penalties into force from the date of publication, with the fine ceiling raised fivefold and the maximum jail term doubled.
