New Delhi: The Lok Sabha on Wednesday (July 29) passed the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026 as the opposition demanded that Union home minister Amit Shah come to the House and give a statement on the police action against protesters in the national capital last week.While over 90 amendments were given by the opposition, none of these were taken up and the Bill was passed by voice vote amid uproar.The Bill was brought to the House after nationwide youth protests demanded accountability for competitive exam paper leaks, and just days after Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned.However, the government provided little insight into how paper leaks would be stopped.Minister of state for the prime minister’s office Jitendra Singh in his reply to the discussion devoted over nine minutes of his 19-minute statement to respond to leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi’s allegations against Shah. While Gandhi had said that Shah ordered for students to be shot at, Singh said in his reply that no shots were fired and “utmost restraint” was exercised.Singh then devoted the remainder of his reply to listing how the government had acted promptly following the NEET-UG paper leak in May and the achievements of the government in higher education – including implementing the National Education Policy (NEP) and increasing the number of higher educational institutions and medical college seats – while trying to ensure that youth are not only dependent on government employment.The Bill seeks to amend the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act of 2024 and strengthen fairness, enhance the credibility of the public examination system and facilitate time-bound investigations and speedy trials. It proposes stricter punishment of up to ten years’ imprisonment and a Rs 50 lakh fine for paper leak offences, while organised rackets will attract a minimum sentence of seven years as well as fines of up to Rs 10 crore.The Bill was brought after Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week, amid the nationwide protests, promised to set up fast-track courts for paper leak cases.Singh said that while Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra alleged no action had been taken since the 2024 legislation was enacted, 52 FIRs had already been lodged since the law came into force.Countering the Congress’s K.C. Venugopal over school closures, Singh said that the number of universities had increased and called the NEP a “gamechanger”.“It was your incomplete work. You had made young children prisoners of the subjects chosen by their parents and guardians. The NEP has liberated adolescent children and given them aptitudinal freedom,” said Singh.Singh said students now have entry and exit provisions, that higher education is undergoing “democratisation” and that the government had increased medical colleges and seats, with the number of AIIMSs rising to 22, government medical colleges to 840, MBBS seats to 1,39,000 and post graduate seats to 86,300.He said that following the NEET-UG paper leak in May, the government had handed over the investigation to the CBI, and a chargesheet has now been filed.“Under the new law, an investigation will be over in five months. Beyond this, if you talk about jobs, the government has provided new ways to seek employment outside government jobs. The number of start-ups increased from 350 to over 2,30,000,” he said.The minister said that provisions had been brought to the 2024 Act to make them more stringent, including by increasing punishments and fines.The discussion on both Tuesday and Wednesday was overshadowed by opposition members demanding Shah’s presence in the House and a statement on why pellet guns, tear gas, batons and AK-47s were used on protesters.Gandhi’s speech on Wednesday led to an uproar after he said Shah had ordered students to be shot at, with the treasury benches demanding an apology. Shah, who directly controls the Delhi police and the Central Reserve Police Force (to which the Rapid Action Force reports), is yet to respond to the police action of July 20.While Shah was not present in the House, later on Wednesday evening he posted a statement on X hailing the Modi government for passing the Bill.“The Modi govt will spare no one who attempts to imperil the future of our students and will leave no stone unturned to ensure that they face the full wrath of the law,” wrote Shah.In their speeches opposition members called the Bill an “eyewash” and said that if the 2024 Act was implemented then the May paper leak would not have taken place.BJP MPs on the other hand hit out at the previous UPA governments, blaming them for paper leaks.BJP MP Anurag Thakur said that in 2010 a recommendation was made for a national testing agency but that this was not given due consideration.“You must compliment PM Modi and this government for finishing an unfinished task that you should have completed,” he said.BJP MP Bansuri Swaraj said that Modi had provided a legislative solution, in comparison to the UPA’s “policy vacuum”.“The Congress-led UPA had a policy vacuum, but Modi, using Gen-Z’s language, clocked it and provided a legislative solution. While Narendra Modi provided a robust anti-paper leak law, all that the opposition did was chase political opportunism. The UPA’s mantra was delay, deflect and deny, while Modi’s mantra is detect, decide and deliver,” she said.