Shashi Tharoor, a Congress Member of Parliament, criticized the government’s Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill 2026 during a Lok Sabha debate on Tuesday [1].
The critique highlights a growing tension between the Indian government's punitive approach to exam fraud and calls for systemic reform to protect millions of students. Tharoor said that the current examination system is broken and that harsh penalties do not address the root causes of paper-leak scams [1].
Under the 2026 bill, proposed punishments for paper-leak offenses include prison terms of up to 10 years [1]. Tharoor said that such measures are ineffective, stating, "Success is not the number of people we send to prison" [2].
He pointed to systemic failures within the National Testing Agency (NTA) as a primary driver of the crisis. Tharoor said the agency operates with only 24 staff members [1]. This severe understaffing, he said, allows scandals involving exams like NEET and JEE to persist, undermining the integrity of the national testing process.
Tharoor emphasized the human cost of these failures, noting that students carry more than just admit cards into the exam hall. "Students don't just carry an admit card into the exam hall, they carry years of hard work, sleepless nights, and the hopes of entire families," Tharoor said [2].
The debate also touched upon the tragic consequences of the broken system. Reports indicated that a 22-year-old NEET aspirant died by suicide following a paper leak [3]. Tharoor said that the focus of the government must shift from punishment to prevention to avoid such outcomes [2].
Tharoor said that the reliance on punitive measures ignores the necessity of building a robust, well-staffed infrastructure capable of securing examinations against corruption [1].
“"Success is not the number of people we send to prison."”
The debate reflects a fundamental disagreement over how to secure India's high-stakes testing environment. While the government is prioritizing deterrence through severe criminal penalties, opposition members argue that the vulnerability of the system is an administrative failure. The fact that the NTA operates with minimal staffing suggests a gap between the scale of national examinations and the resources allocated to manage them, leaving the system prone to leaks regardless of the legal penalties for offenders.
