New Delhi, July 27 (IANS). The Central Government is going to introduce the ‘Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026’ in the Lok Sabha on Monday during the monsoon session of Parliament. The government aims to make the existing law more stringent to prevent paper leaks, cheating and other unfair means in public examinations. Samajwadi Party (SP) MPs have raised questions on this proposed amendment and said that merely tightening the law will not solve the problem. The party stressed the need for comprehensive reforms in the examination system and administrative accountability.
SP President and MP Akhilesh Yadav accused the government of taking action against students and youth. Speaking to reporters, he said that cases are being filed against students and youth at various places while the government should respect their awareness and democratic voice. According to him, the government is trying to challenge the consciousness of the public but this awareness has now become a challenge for the government.
Akhilesh Yadav said that opposition parties will discuss this issue among themselves and decide the future strategy. He indicated that the opposition will jointly decide their further course of action regarding the examination system, interests of youth and government policies.
SP MP Ram Gopal Yadav raised serious questions on the effectiveness of the proposed amendment bill. He said that mere provision of harsh punishment does not stop crimes.
Giving an example, he said that despite harsh punishments like life imprisonment and death penalty for crimes like murder in the Indian Penal Code, murders do not stop. Similarly, incidents like paper leaks cannot be stopped merely by making laws.
Ramgopal Yadav said that incidents of paper leaks mainly occur from the places where question papers are set, where they are printed or through influential coaching institutes which have access to the relevant mechanisms. In many cases, due to insider collusion, question papers reach the outside before the examination. Therefore it is necessary to strengthen the security and monitoring of the entire examination system instead of making only punitive laws.
He said that such irregularities have increased after the implementation of digital system in the examination process. According to him, when the entire process was not digital, such incidents were relatively rare.
He claimed that the possibility of hacking and data leakage is high in the digital system, hence merely bringing a new law without strengthening the technical security will not be enough.
SP MP Awadhesh Prasad also reacted to the amendment bill and said that this step should have been taken earlier. He said that if the government had taken effective measures in time, the lives of many youth who committed suicide due to paper leak could have been saved.
He also mentioned the students’ protest at Jantar Mantar, lathi charge and detention of opposition leaders and said that if timely action had been taken, such situations would not have arisen.
–IANS
SAK/PM
