New Anti-Paper Leak Bill Punishes Offenders But Doesn’t Prevent Leaks

Laws can punish the guilty. Only structural reform can protect the innocent as exam security remains vulnerable.

A conviction secured years later cannot reverse the cancellation of an examination or restore the academic opportunities lost by the more than two million candidates who appeared for NEET-UG this year, writes Adarsh Anand.

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In the wake of the nationwide protests over paper leaks, which led to the ouster of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the Centre is turning to harsher penalties as its latest response.

On 29 July, the Lok Sabha passed the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026, representing a legislative shift towards stricter penal measures in response to the recurring controversies. The Bill proposes increasing the maximum term of imprisonment to 10 years, raising the maximum individual fine to Rs 50 lakh, enhancing penalties for service providers to Rs 5 crore, and establishing a Special Task Force, alongside fast-track courts, operating under prescribed timelines for investigation and trial.

The legislation follows the cancellation of NEET-UG 2026 after reports that a leaked “guess paper” substantially overlapped with the examination. Whether these enhanced punitive measures will meaningfully reduce future examination leaks, however, remains an open question.

The Economics Of Paper Leaks

Any assessment of the proposed amendments must begin with the economics of examination leaks.

According to the Bihar Police investigation into the 2024 NEET-UG paper leak, candidates allegedly paid intermediaries between Rs 30 lakh and Rs 50 lakh for advance access to the examination paper. Against the potential gains of that magnitude, enhanced criminal penalties may have limited deterrent value if the likelihood of prompt detection and conviction remains low. 

Moreover, criminal prosecution operates only after the breach has occurred.

A conviction secured years later cannot reverse the cancellation of an examination or restore the academic opportunities lost by the more than two million candidates who appeared for NEET-UG this year.

Experience also suggests that enforcement often reaches intermediaries and individual participants more readily than the institutional vulnerabilities that made the leak possible.  

The recurring pattern of the examination leaks indicates that legislative response confined to enhanced criminal punishments may not adequately address the institutional conditions that facilitate such offences. The administration of a single nationwide examination necessarily involves a complex chain of custody extending from printing and transportation to storage and distribution.

Where confidentiality is compromised across the multiple stages of that process, the issue concerns systemic weaknesses in examination governance rather than isolated criminal conduct. This also raises broader questions regarding whether the National Testing Agency (NTA) possesses sufficient institutional capacity and operational safeguards to discharge its statutory responsibilities effectively.

The government has been warned about these vulnerabilities before. In Vanshika Yadav vs Union of India (2024), the Supreme Court refused to cancel NEET-UG despite acknowledging a paper leak because it found no evidence of a systemic compromise. But it also backed broader reforms by expanding the role of the K Radhakrishnan committee. Nearly two years later, NEET-UG 2026 leaked again.

One of the committee’s key recommendations to transition towards randomised computer-based testing represented a significant preventive intervention, yet it was not implemented for NEET-UG 2026, and has reportedly been deferred to 2027.

Prevention Over Penalties

A prevention-oriented regulatory model would focus less on increasing penalties and more on redesigning the institutional architecture of examination security.

Reforms could include replacing single session examinations with multiple session or randomised computer based testing, thereby reducing the systemic consequences of any individual breach.

Similarly, encrypted digital delivery systems with secure decryption protocols at examination centers would minimise vulnerabilities associated with physical transportation.

A comprehensive framework would incorporate statutory accountability mechanisms for examination authorities, including mandatory independent audits and compensation, where administrative failures result in cancelled examinations.

Institutional incentives should also encourage the reporting of irregularities through appropriate whistleblower protections.

The new Bill principally reinforces the criminal justice response to examination malpractice by increasing penalties and expediting prosecution. These reforms may strengthen accountability after an offence has been committed. They don’t substantially reform the institutional framework governing examination security.

The legislation, therefore, leaves unresolved broader questions relating to the design of the distribution chain, and the institutional capacity of the authorities responsible for administering public examinations. Laws can punish the guilty. Only structural reform can protect the innocent, and based on the evidence of the last 21 months, that reform keeps arriving a leak too late.

(Adarsh Anand is a law student at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Views are personal. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)