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New Delhi: The government is all set to table the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026 on Monday. The Bill will be tabled by Union Minister of State Jitendra Singh and proposes to bring in stricter punishments, time-bound investigation and trials, and creation of a Special Task Force (STF) to investigate any discrepancies in public examinations, reported the New Indian Express.

According to the Lok Sabha Secretariat, MoS Jitendra Singh will present the Bill in the Lok Sabha. A draft of the Bill was circulated among MPs just before the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan as Education Minister.

The fresh Bill seeks to amend the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024. This Act was brought in 2 years back to curb unfair means in public examinations and maintain their fairness and transparency. The amendments have reportedly been proposed in view of the recent question paper leaks and examination irregularities, specially the NEET paper leak.

The amendments provide for jail of up to 5 to 10 years for anyone found involved in unfair means. At present the punishment is 3 years, but the Bill proposes to increase it to 5 years. The maximum fine amount for those found involved in paper leak has been increased to Rs 50 lakh from the current Rs 10 lakh.

Apart from this stricter penalties will be imposed on service providers involved in conducting these public examinations. For the service providers, the maximum fine amount has been increased from Rs 1 crore to Rs 5 crore. Apart from this, the defaulting service provider can now be banned for 8 years from providing its services. Earlier it was 4 years.

Apart from this Directors and senior management personnel working with the service providers if found guilty will face imprisonment of up to 5 years, instead of the current 3 years. The fine amount for such offenders will now be Rs 5 crore, instead of the current Rs 1 crore.

The fine amount for those found involved in organised crimes, related to public examination has been increased to Rs 10 crore, from the current Rs 1 crore. The imprisonment for the offence will now be 7 years, instead of the current 5 years.

The Bill proposes that in case STF or any Central agency is investigating an examination irregularity, then the investigation must be completed within 2 months.