New Delhi: A debate on the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026, in the Rajya Sabha Thursday turned into a heated argument between the treasury benches and the Opposition.
It started when Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge referred to the ‘Manusmriti’, saying its elements were entering the syllabus. He said, the ‘Manusmriti’ (ancient legal and social Hindu text) teaches that if a Shudra (‘untouchable’) listens to the Ved, “his ears should be filled with shards”, if he reads the Ved aloud, “his tongue should be cut off”, and if he retains its words “his body should be dismembered”. While Kharge did not specify which syllabus he meant, ‘Manusmriti’ finds reference in NCERT, Delhi University and syllabi of other government colleges.
His comments drew strong objections and sloganeering from the treasury benches, and Leader of the House J. P. Nadda demanded the ‘quotes’ be authenticated.
The Rajya Sabha Chairperson asked what the ‘Manusmriti’ had to do with the Bill. Nadda said the remarks on ‘Manusmriti’ would create unrest and were not based on facts, and asked that only the original text be quoted in the House. Nadda had earlier asked Kharge not to use unparliamentary words.
The Bill, which the Lok Sabha passed Wednesday, amends the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024, raising the minimum imprisonment for organised examination crimes to seven years, extendable to 10, lifts the maximum fine from Rs 1 crore to Rs 10 crore, provides for a Special Task Force to investigate paper leaks, sets a two-month deadline for investigation, and establishes special fast track courts to conclude trials within three months of a charge sheet being filed.
Kharge spoke for about an hour, with Sonia Gandhi and Congress leader Jairam Ramesh in the House. He asked why the government had waited two years to amend the law. “If this is what you wanted to do, why didn’t you do it in 2024? Why are you doing it now, two years later? Because at that time, you wanted to do politics,” he said, adding that Rahul Gandhi had raised paper leaks during the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.
Kharge added that the Bill did little to prevent leaks. “This Bill does not provide a strong mechanism to prevent paper leaks from happening in the first place. You have merely changed the figures,” he said, describing it as an attempt “to pacify the students and young people who have taken to the streets”.
He said 152 papers had leaked over the past decade and put the number of student suicides under the present government at 1.25 lakh. He said NEET had been leaked in 2015, 2016, 2021, 2024 and 2026, and that the main accused in the 2024 case was out on bail.
On appointments, he said, “There is only one criteria for selecting professors and vice chancellor: Whether they are attached to RSS or not.” He said more than 30 lakh posts lay vacant in the central government and public sector, and linked the vacancies to reservation, saying half the posts would go to Scheduled Castes.
Referring to the police action on protesters on 20 July, when Delhi Police allegedly used pellet guns on demonstrators marching towards Jantar Mantar, Kharge said a Safdarjung Hospital report confirmed pellet injuries; the government has denied the use of pellet guns.
Kharge asked: “Who gave the order to lathi charge and use pellet guns on 20 July? Under whose control do Police, CRPF, RAF come?” He demanded that Union Home Minister Amit Shah either answer or resign.
“Why hasn’t the Home Minister shown his face in Parliament since the protest? Is his mouth sewn?” he said. “You’re sitting inside a room, without being answerable to anything, but we will bring you out.”
Union Minister Jitendra Singh replied that the government was completing work the UPA had left undone. “Why didn’t the Congress form a national testing body when the UPA was in power?” he asked, adding that his government had already filed a charge sheet in the paper leak case and a trial had begun under the new framework. Nadda added that the Opposition was disrupting the Monsoon session because they lacked substantive issues.
TMC MP Sagarika Ghose said aspirants and their families had been left “with shattered dreams” and said treasury bench members were unaffected because their children studied abroad. “They understand only Mann Ki Baat and not Jan Ki Baat,” she said.
BJP MP Brij Lal defended the Home Minister, saying Shah was “the first Home Minister in the country who went to the borders and spoke with soldiers”. Opposition members also sought an apology from Union Minister Giriraj Singh over his remarks on alleged foreign funding for the student protests.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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It’s so funny. These monkeys (opposition) have nothing left other than to scream “manusmriti”. Doesn’t work anymore buddy.