Congress leader and MP Jairam Ramesh on Thursday (July 30) questioned the discrepancy between students’ performance in the Maharashtra Common Entrance Test (MH-CET) and their Class 12 board examinations, while taking a swipe at the Centre’s proposed Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026, alleging that fast-track courts for paper-related irregularities would not resolve the entrenched issues grappling the country’s education system.
“For the past three years, a clear discrepancy has been evident between the results of the Maharashtra Common Entrance Test (MH-CET) for engineering admissions and the scores of Class 12 board examinations,” he said, according to news agency ANI.
“Top-ranking students in MH-CET are not performing as expected in their board exams. Is there some kind of irregularity behind this? Or is the reason that the coaching culture is increasingly overshadowing school-based education? We need to engage in serious introspection on these questions,” the MP added.
This is not the first time that the party has alleged ‘errors’ and questioned the reliability of the merit list published by the State Cell. Earlier, similar remarks were made by Congress leader and AICC Secretary Sachin Sawant, following which the concerned authorities reportedly clarified that the admission process was completely transparent, asserting that “no irregularities or scam have taken place” and that “there are no errors in the CET merit list.”
Alleging that passing a law to set up fast-track courts is not a solution, MP Jairam further said, “It is an insult to the sentiments of the millions of youth who have taken to the streets in recent months and to their justified outrage.”
Education Minister’s Resignation Was ‘First Step’ Towards Restoring Credibility: MP Jairam Ramesh
Commenting on Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation, Ramesh said it was only the ‘first step’ towards restoring credibility in the education system.
“India’s education system is rotten from the inside, and the resignation of the Education Minister is merely the first step in a long process to restore its credibility,” Ramesh said in a post on X.
MP’s remarks came as the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026, was discussed in the Upper House (Rajya Sabha) on Thursday (July 30), a day after it was cleared by the Lok Sabha following a protracted debate over recent paper leaks and alleged police action against students engaged in peaceful protests at Jantar Mantar on July 20, 2026.