Parliament passes paper leak Bill as Opposition walks out of Rajya Sabha

Parliament passed the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026, after the Rajya Sabha too cleared it on Thursday. The Lok Sabha had passed the Bill on Wednesday. Opposition members belonging to the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) walked out of the House before the reply by Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh to the seven-hour debate. The Upper House considered the Bill after the government listed it as supplementary agenda.

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Replying to the debate, Mr. Singh questioned the Opposition’s contention that there have been 152 examination paper leaks under the Narendra Modi government. “They could not authenticate it,” he said, adding that the government has made efforts to free medical education from management quota malice. He said the government had increased the number of All India Institutes of Medical Sciences and both undergraduate and post-graduate seats in medical education. He said the government’s approach lays emphasis on democratisation of education. “The National Education Policy has liberated children from the slavery of subjects chosen by their parents, teachers or guardians,” he said.

Earlier, moving the Bill, Mr. Singh said the Bill reflects the Union government’s commitment to safeguard the interests of students and youth while ensuring merit, consistency, transparency and credibility in the public examination system. “The objective of the legislation is to ensure greater consistency, credibility and transparency in public examinations so that sincere and deserving candidates are rewarded for their genuine efforts and their future is not jeopardised by organised examination-related crimes,” he said.

Initiating the debate, Opposition leader Mallikarjun Kharge demanded a Supreme Court-monitored high-powered committee probe into the NEET paper leaks and the police action on protesters. He demanded the resignation of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and warned that people’s power will drag him “out of his forts” and make him answerable for what the government was doing against the students. “You are the Home Minister, and despite so much unrest, you are not opening your mouth. Has someone stitched it? He should have spoken openly. In the interest of the nation, he should have borne that insult,” he said.

Criticising the intention of the government, he said the Bill was much delayed and does not address how to prevent paper leaks. He said question papers for 152 State and Central examinations were leaked in the last 10 years and and no one has ever been punished for the crime.

“After pressure due to nationwide protests by youth, for the first time in 12 years, the Education Minister has resigned. The Higher Education Secretary was transferred. The government claimed to have removed 47 officials of the NTA (National Testing Agency),” Mr. Kharge said, and added that more than 30 lakh posts are lying vacant across the country but the Centre does not want to fill the vacancies as a majority of those posts would have gone to Dalits, Adivasis and Backward Classes.

Congress MP Mukul Wasnik pointed to the systemic issues in the holding of examinations and urged the government to take the matter seriously. Trinamool Congress’s Sagarika Ghose too demanded Mr. Shah’s resignation. “I demand that the Home Minister come to this House, make a statement, answer the students, apologise to the students. If he cannot do so, the Home Minister must resign,” she said. Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Manoj Jha and Samajwadi Party MP Ramgopal Yadav demanded that the NTA be dismantled. Communist Party of India (Marxist) member John Brittas said the government was not treating the root cause of the issue, which was commercialisation of education. The DMK did not walk out with India bloc members, but moved amendments against the Bill, which were defeated.