Anti-paper leak bill explained | Tougher jail, bigger fines, fast-track courts
The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026 restructures how paper-leak and exam-fraud cases are investigated and tried, not just how they are punished.
A special task force is empowered to investigate offences, with a mandated two-month completion window for investigation.
Every state and union territory must designate a Court of Session as a Special Fast Track Court exclusively for offences under the parent Act, with Special Public Prosecutors appointed to run these cases.
A defined appellate route is created — appeals against Fast Track Court orders go to a two-judge High Court bench, targeted for disposal within three months.
Special Courts vs Ordinary Criminal Courts
Indian criminal law generally routes cases through a hierarchy of Magistrate and Sessions Courts under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023 (which replaced the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973). Special enactments periodically designate specific courts to handle offences under those laws exclusively, to prevent them from being delayed in the general case backlog.
Key Details
- Cognizable offences — defined under Section 2(g) BNSS — allow police to investigate and arrest without a magistrate's prior approval, unlike non-cognizable offences.
- Precedents for dedicated special courts include Fast Track Special Courts (FTSCs) for rape and POCSO Act cases, set up nationwide after the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2018 and a 2019 Supreme Court order; special courts also exist under the NDPS Act and Prevention of Corruption Act.
- As of mid-2025, roughly 725 FTSCs (including ~392 exclusive POCSO courts) were operational across 29 States/UTs — illustrating both the model's reach and its capacity constraints (average clearance well below the target caseload per court).
- The 2026 Bill designates a Court of Session in every state/UT as the Special Fast Track Court for offences under the Act, with connected offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 tried jointly.
The Bill imports the same "dedicated special court" architecture used for POCSO and NDPS cases into examination-fraud prosecutions, aiming to avoid the capacity and delay problems seen in those older schemes by pairing it with a strict two-month investigation deadline.
Appellate Structure — Two-Judge High Court Bench
Ordinary criminal appeals from a Sessions Court typically go to a single-judge or division bench of the High Court under general appellate provisions. The 2026 Bill prescribes a specific two-judge bench for appeals from the Special Fast Track Courts and a target disposal timeline.
Key Details
- Appeals against judgments, sentences, or orders of the Special Fast Track Courts must be heard by a bench of two Judges of the High Court.
- Disposal of such appeals is targeted within three months of admission, though courts retain discretion where this is not feasible — the Supreme Court has previously cautioned that it is neither "advisable, nor feasible, nor judicially permissible" to impose a rigid outer limit on the conclusion of criminal proceedings.
- Appeals must ordinarily be filed within 30 days, with the High Court empowered to condone delay up to a maximum of 90 days.
The prescribed two-judge appellate bench and time targets are meant to prevent appeals from becoming a bottleneck after a fast-tracked trial, though implementation experience with similar deadlines in other fast-track schemes suggests these targets function as aspirational benchmarks rather than binding limits.
Investigating Machinery — Special Task Force
The Bill empowers the central government to constitute a special task force to investigate offences under the Act, adding a dedicated investigative layer distinct from routine state police investigation of cognizable offences.
Key Details
- Investigation of an offence under the Act must be completed within two months.
- The parent 2024 Act already covered offences committed by service providers engaged by the designated Public Examination Authorities (UPSC, SSC, RRBs, IBPS, NTA) as well as by individual candidates.
- The Bill does not appear to prescribe a consequence for missing the two-month investigation deadline, unlike some comparable special laws that require a written explanation for delay. [Unverified]
A dedicated task force with a fixed investigation window is intended to prevent paper-leak investigations from being deprioritised relative to other cognizable offences handled by regular police machinery.
- Special Fast Track Court: one Court of Session per state/UT designated exclusively for offences under the Act.
- Investigation deadline: 2 months from registration of the offence.
- Trial to proceed day-to-day; completion targeted within 3 months of chargesheet filing.
- Appeals: two-judge High Court bench; disposal targeted within 3 months of admission; delay condonable up to 90 days.
- Comparable precedent: ~725 Fast Track Special Courts (incl. ~392 exclusive POCSO courts) operating across 29 States/UTs as of mid-2025.