Shashi Tharoor says anti-paper leak Bill 'not enough', seeks overhaul of India's exam system

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday said the bill brought by the government to tackle paper leaks was "not enough" and asserted that the ambition cannot simply be to punish a leak more severely, but to prevent it from happening in the first place. Participating in the debate on The Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill-2026 in the Lok Sabha, Tharoor called for a comprehensive reform of India's examination architecture and said the country must move away from the current "single, high-stakes, high-stress, examination model, where the future of millions is decided in a few gruelling hours". "The success of this law should not ultimately be measured by the number of people we send to prison. It should be measured by the number of paper leaks that never happen," he said.

"It should be measured by examinations that take place on time, results that students can trust, and institutions that accept responsibility. More importantly, it should be measured by whether a young Indian can walk into an examination hall believing one simple thing is true: that nobody has bought an advantage that they have spent years working to earn," Tharoor said.

All students were asking of the government was a fair examination where their performance alone decided their future, he said. "When a question paper is leaked, therefore, what is stolen is the value of somebody's hard work. Your bill introduces all sorts of punishments; 10 years imprisonment, Rs 10 crore fines... if somebody makes a business out of selling the futures of our children, yes, the law must come down heavily on them. But, punishment begins after the damage has already been done. By the time we arrest the person who leaked a NEET paper, lakhs of students have already suffered," he said. "Our ambition cannot simply be to punish a paper leak more severely, but it must be to prevent it from happening," he asserted.

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Tharoor said every paper leak is not an isolated scandal as it exposes a deeper structural weakness in the country's examination system. If parliament is serious about safeguarding the integrity of public examinations, then the focus must not be on punishing failure, but on preventing it, he said. Referring to the bill's proposal that investigations be completed within two months and trials within three months, Tharoor said it provides for special fast-track courts and asked whether the judicial system had the capacity to meet those timelines. Citing 2025 figures, he said Fast Track Special Courts registered 1.44 lakh new cases but disposed of only 66,500, while pendency stood at 2.46 lakh cases.

"Fast-tracking cannot be achieved by passing a bill alone. It requires adequate judges, prosecutors, timely investigations, and efficient case management. And a situation where the CBI counsel actually shows up in the court, unlike today. Until these gaps are addressed, justice will continue to be delayed," he said. "You can pass a law, but justice cannot be legislated into existence," Tharoor argued. If the government really says this bill is going to get cases done in three months, can it tell the House how it will be achieved, he asked. "Will there be more judges, dedicated prosecutors, and better forensic capacity? Or is this just a law on paper? Similarly with the proposed Special Task Force; Who will serve on this Special Task Force? What qualifications must its officers possess? What will be their tenure? Under which circumstances will a case be handed over to it?" he said.

Tharoor said paper leaks can no longer be thought of as someone opening a sealed packet and finding the questions. Modern examinations begin much earlier, at the stage of question-setting, moderation, translation, digitisation, printing and distribution, he said, adding that examination security must be present at all these stages. Every access to sensitive question papers must leave a digital audit trail, with independent vetting, and we require a serious cyber security framework, he said. Tharoor also called for a comprehensive reform of India's examination architecture.

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"India has to move away from the single, high-stakes, high-stress, examination model, where the future of millions is decided in a few gruelling hours, and one bad traffic jam, one illness, one accident, could actually ruin an entire year of a student's life. Why can't we be like the SAT or the GRE?" he said. Talking about the National Testing Agency, Tharoor pointed out that of the 14 major examinations conducted by the agency, six have had allegations of paper leaks and other discrepancies. "Now, why is the sorry record there? The NTA has only 39 permanent posts and 15 of those 39 posts lie vacant. So, just 24 people, on permanent posts, are responsible for examinations that can determine the future of crores of young Indians?" he said. There is something fundamentally wrong about this arrangement, Tharoor opined. An organisation carrying permanent responsibility cannot depend on temporary capacity, he said.

In NEET 2026, more than 22 lakh candidates appeared in an exam with roughly 1.4 lakh medical seats, he pointed out. "Think about what that means for an 18-year-old. We have created a system in which so many people are competing for so few opportunities, and the result is coaching centres and a black market for unfair advantage," he said. "We need more quality institutions, more seats, more pathways to professional education and a system in which one examination does not become a referendum on a young person's life. The student's responsibility is to prepare. Our responsibility is to make sure that preparation matters," he said. Calling for a comprehensive transformation, Tharoor said the bill will pass, but it is not enough. "That is the message I want to give the government. We will dismantle these cheating networks. Let us do something more important as well. Let us build an examination system in which those crimes become harder to commit in the first place," the Congress leader said.