New Delhi, 24 July  

The Union Cabinet on Friday approved a draft bill to ensure stricter punishments for paper leaks, hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an announcement.

The Centre had brought out a new law in 2024 as well when it was faced with raging paper leak controversies.

Nearly four months after President Droupadi Murmu gave assent to The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024, the Bill was notified in June 2024 when tempers were high due to alleged NEET and NET paper leaks.

Before this legislation, there was no specific substantive law to deal with unfair means adopted or offences committed by various entities involved in the conduct of public examinations by the central government and its agencies.

The Act aims to prevent unfair means in the public examinations conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), the Staff Selection Commission (SSC), the railways, banking recruitment examinations and the National Testing Agency (NTA) among others.

The earlier Bill had provisions for a minimum of three to five years of imprisonment to curb cheating and those involved in organised crimes of cheating will face five to 10 years of imprisonment and a minimum fine of Rs 1 crore. The Bill had provisions for "engagement of services of other government agencies by public examination authority", "preparation of norms, standards and guidelines" and "reporting of incidents of unfair means or offences" among others.

Pre-examination activities such as pre-audit for the examination readiness of the public examination centres, candidate check-in, biometric registration, security and screening, seat allocation, question paper setting and loading, invigilation in the examination, post-examination activities and guidelines for providing scribes were also part of norms.

The Bill outlines 15 illegal acts including leaking question papers, tampering with OMR sheets, creating fake websites and issuing fake admit cards.

Paper leaks are again at the centre of controversy with student-led protests over the NEET-UG examination snowballing into a nationwide agitation, driven by paper leaks, alleged police crackdowns on demonstrators and ongoing demands for accountability.

Opposition parties have joined the chorus and are demanding Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation besides a debate in Parliament on the issue.

In a late night video message for protesting students on Thursday, Prime Minister Modi announced that a bill containing provisions for strong action against paper leaks will be introduced in Parliament next week.