Centre’s law will neither solve NEET’s paper leak problem nor address its deeper issues

Stringent laws, it is clear, won’t solve the problem of integrity of public examinations. We need to come up with out-of-the-box solutions 6 min readJul 27, 2026 02:50 PM IST First published on: Jul 27, 2026 at 02:50 PM IST In 18th-century England, picking pockets was punishable by death. Even when the offender was being hanged, there were sharpers ready to pick the pockets of spectators at the scene of the execution. This shows how “effective” the penalty death has been as a deterrent. If the death penalty cannot deter, no other punishment can. In response to the large number of paper leaks over the last decade, the NDA government has introduced a bill to enhance punishments to seven years’ imprisonment and a Rs 10 crore fine for those involved in organised paper leaks. But what deters is