The passage also saw a stormy exchange between the Opposition and the government.
Initiating the discussion in the afternoon, Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge demanded Home Minister Amit Shah’s resignation. “Paper churane wale bachte rahe, mehnat karne wale pit te rahe. Yeh kaisa nyay (Those behind paper leaks kept escaping, those who worked hard kept getting beaten up. What kind of justice is this),” he said, alleging that the government had ignored demands for a strong law against paper leaks in 2024.
Union Minister Jitendra Singh, who moved the Bill in the House, said the amendments reflect the government’s willingness to “learn from experience” after the implementation of the 2024 law. “In the wake of the recent sequence of events, PM Modi lost no time in declaring that nobody would be allowed to jeopardise the students’ future. There is a zero tolerance policy. This legislation seeks to make the law more stringent. It is my humble request to all leaders in the House to help pass the Bill,” he said.
However, Kharge said the amendments merely enhanced penalties and created new enforcement mechanisms without addressing the root causes of recurring paper leaks. “The Bill that has come to the House for discussion only has modified numbers — higher penalties, stricter punishment and the special task force. This is not going to make any difference. The question is how to strengthen the exam system so that paper leaks don’t happen,” he said.
Kharge claimed the Opposition had suggested similar reforms in 2024, but the government had ignored them.
Amid repeated interruptions by the treasury benches during his hour-long interjection, Kharge questioned the use of force against students and sought accountability for the police action. “Who authorised the use of lathicharges, tear gas and pellet guns on students? Who were the people in plainclothes beating up students? Under whose orders do the RAF and CRPF operate? Who was the mastermind behind this entire sequence of events? The country wants answers to these questions. If the Home Minister cannot answer, he should resign,” he said.
He said that if Shah does not resign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi should remove him from office. “This government wants to protect Home Minister Amit Shah, but it will not be able to protect him for long,” he added.
Kharge claimed that over 100 students were injured and several were hospitalised. “Many students are admitted to hospitals in critical condition. Many children have suffered pellet gun injuries on their bodies and eyes. Several students are hospitalised; some have lost their eyesight, while many have suffered broken limbs. Home Minister Amit Shah is responsible for this,” he said.
Amid sloganeering from the treasury benches, Opposition MPs sought an apology from Union Minister Giriraj Singh as he alleged foreign funding during protests.
“What the government is doing today, we had suggested back in 2024, but at that time the government did not listen to us. Back then, the Lok Sabha elections were approaching, and the government wanted to play politics while Rahul Gandhi was raising questions about paper leaks during the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra,” Kharge said.
The Congress president also accused the Centre of weakening academic freedom and promoting ideological appointments in higher educational institutions. He said educational institutions were being filled with people affiliated to the RSS.
“University campuses are not meant for any narrow ideology, blind superstition, or the imposition of a single ideology. But under the Modi government, educational institutions are being filled with RSS affiliates. The position of Vice-Chancellor in the country’s universities is being given exclusively to people associated with the RSS,” he said.
Kharge demanded a ‘National Youth Employment Strategy’ and a fixed annual exam calendar. He said the repeated postponement of exams, question paper leaks, delayed results and stalled recruitment processes were impacting the careers of young people, with many candidates crossing the age limit in the process.
Earlier in the day, as the House was informed that the Bill would be taken up for consideration, Congress MP Pramod Tiwari, Deputy Leader of the Opposition, said they wanted Shah to issue a statement on the police crackdown on protesters.
While Opposition members raised slogans of “Amit Shah sadan mai aao (come to the House)”, Union Minister J P Nadda said: “I want to tell the House that the Opposition’s stance has been negative since this session began. They only want to interrupt; they want to shift goalposts. I want to clarify… that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is willing to discuss any matter”.
“Whenever discussions have happened, the Opposition has fallen flat on their face. They are in the habit of doing this, and I condemn this strongly. They are indulging in irresponsible behaviour,” he said.
The Opposition later staged a walkout before the House reconvened in the afternoon.
During the discussion on the Bill, several Opposition MPs raised the demand to do away with the NEET examination altogether, returning to a decentralised system.
DMK MP Tiruchi Siva questioned how one system of examination could work in a diverse country like India. He said through the NEET system, the “criteria to become a medical student is money.”
Samajwadi Party MP Ram Gopal Yadav, too, demanded that the exam system be handed back to states. “The more it becomes digitised, the easier it is to leak,” he said. He said the government should give the states the right to conduct the exam, with 15% of seats being filled through the CBSE’s central exam as was the case before NEET.
CPI(M) MP John Brittas and RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha called for the National Testing Agency (NTA) to be rolled back. Referring to the Bill, Jha, who is a Delhi University professor, said: “These cosmetic reforms won’t work, you have to dismantle the source of the disease, which is the NTA. Your bureaucracy and your MPs also know this.”
“Legislation per se is not a panacea for a crisis of this magnitude,” Brittas said. He flagged the scale of the coaching industry, saying its annual turnover was Rs.1.4 lakh crore. “Scrap NTA, decentralise the system, review NEET,” he said.
“The treasury benches are not worried because their children are studying abroad. They have no skin in the game,” TMC MP Sagarika Ghose said. “A cancelled examination is not just an administrative failure, it is a personal betrayal,” she said, adding that the Bill was no solution to the problem at hand.
“Looking at this Bill, it seems the government is admitting that paper leak will continue. You don’t have the confidence that you can conduct an exam without a leak,” AAP MP Sanjay Singh said. Referring to the Bill’s provision for fast-track courts for such cases, Singh said there were already 2.5 lakh cases pending in fast-track courts across the country.
BJD member Santrupt Misra said the Bill gives unreasonable timelines for probe and trial — two months and three months respectively. “This Bill starts unfortunately after a crime has been committed, it does not prevent the crime,” Misra said.
Milind Deora of the Shiv Sena suggested that students should be involved in the reform process by being given a formal role in the consultations, and security audits be conducted for all major exams.
The Opposition MPs also demanded a statement from the government on the police action against protesting students on July 20.
Defending Shah, BJP MP Brij Lal said: “As a Home Minister, he has led the forces from the front. Now, terrorism is over and Naxalism is over.” On the question of who ordered the use of force on protestors, Lal, who is a retired Uttar Pradesh DGP, said: “Whenever there is a law and order situation, the magistrate decides, along with police officers, on the use of force.”