NEET leak puts spotlight on Maharashtra’s delayed coaching class regulation law

For nearly a decade, the state school education department’s efforts to regulate coaching classes have also remained on hold, with no further development since a committee of experts submitted a draft of recommendations in 2018. And most recently, the Central government’s 2024 guidelines to state governments to form their own legal frameworks are in place, but the Maharashtra government is yet to implement the directives, keeping students and parents in the lurch.

The issue regained prominence as irregularities by coaching classes, including overcrowding and segregation of students based on fees, came to light recently in the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak case.

What is the proposed regulatory framework?

The proposed regulatory framework is expected to outline operational rules for coaching classes, including mandatory registration, setting facility standards, transparency in fee structures, and guidelines against misleading promises made in many advertisements. Apart from infrastructural guidelines, it will also include aspects such as student welfare, safety protocols, and students’ mental health. The proposed regulatory framework draws on the draft recommendations submitted in 2018 by the 12-member expert committee, which included government officials.

The policy will require coaching classes to register with the government, along with required safety certificates from agencies such as the fire brigade, to ensure the premises are safe to occupy, and to install CCTV surveillance in accordance with norms. The framework will also define the stipulated student-to-teacher ratio and the number of students per batch. Instead of regulating fees, the policy will aim to increase transparency by requiring coaching classes to publish fee prospectuses publicly. This framework is now waiting to be tabled in the upcoming session.

No regulatory mechanism for decades, flip-flops, assurances to court

In January 2008, while hearing a 1999 plea by the NGO Forum for Fairness in Education, the Bombay High Court asked the state government to devise a mechanism to regulate coaching centres and monitor their functioning. The NGO alleged centres across Maharashtra operated without regulation or basic facilities, and that government teachers also taught there.

It pointed out that the 2000 Ordinance promulgated on October 17, 2007, to regulate coaching centres, “for best reasons known the government” was allowed to lapse and “did not take the shape of an Act.” In 2009, the High Court observed, “the government at no point of time has appeared serious in regulating the coaching centres in the state.”

Nearly two decades later, in March 2025, the government said a draft Maharashtra Private Tuition Classes (Regulation) 2018 bill had been prepared and was likely to be tabled in the 2025 Monsoon Session of the Legislative Assembly. In July last year, the government told the High Court that it could not be tabled in the Monsoon Session. Despite the government’s assurance to the court that it “shall make an endeavour to ensure that the bill is passed”, the bill is yet to be introduced.

Why are Supreme Court guidelines on students’ well-being still applicable to coaching centres in Maharashtra?

As there are no other regulations in place in Maharashtra for coaching centres, the government remains bound by the Supreme Court’s 2025 guidelines.

The Supreme Court, in July 2025, while deciding a plea seeking a CBI probe into the alleged death by suicide of a 17-year-old girl student, who was taking coaching for the NEET exam at a private coaching institute at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, issued guidelines to enforce the fundamental rights of students.

The Supreme Court said the guidelines will be binding until appropriate legislation or regulatory frameworks are enacted, which is not yet the case in Maharashtra. These guidelines apply to all educational institutions, including public and private schools, colleges, universities, training centres, coaching institutes, residential academies, and hostels, irrespective of their affiliation.

What are Supreme Court guidelines?

The Supreme Court has directed all educational institutions and coaching centres to adopt a uniform mental health policy, appoint counsellors and mentors, avoid segregation based on academic performance and public shaming, train staff in psychological first aid, display helplines, ensure mechanisms against harassment and bullying, reduce academic pressure, improve hostels and add safeguards in suicide-prone hubs.

The Centre’s guidelines and Maharashtra’s response

Amid growing concerns over student suicides, increasing mental stress, safety violations and misleading advertisements, the Ministry of Education issued guidelines to regulate coaching centres. These guidelines included provisions such as mandatory registration, infrastructural and operational norms, directives to ensure transparency in fee structures, age restrictions, and measures to ensure mental health support and overall student welfare. It restricted the enrolment of students below 16 years of age, defined teacher qualifications, and sought grievance redressal mechanisms.

Drawing on these guidelines, respective states were expected to form their own regulatory frameworks that best considered local factors. Reportedly, states such as Goa and Karnataka have framed their regulations based on this; Maharashtra is yet to form any rules. At the time when the Central government issued guidelines, the state had mentioned how such a framework to regulate coaching classes was already under discussion in Maharashtra.

Earlier this year, in January, as the Maharashtra government issued guidelines to reduce academic and other stress faced by school-going students, it categorically stated that these rules would apply not only to schools but also to coaching classes. These measures included guidelines on student-counsellor ratio, timely mental health support, publicising of suicide prevention helplines, among others. But these were still guidelines, not regulations, and were not exclusively for coaching classes.

This delay in the state’s regulatory framework is baffling, especially since a set of coaching classes is advocating for the regulations. Various coaching class owners’ associations across Maharashtra have been demanding a regulatory framework for over a decade. In fact, the committee of experts formed in the year 2016-17 included representatives from coaching class owners to provide suggestions on a set of regulations. This has once again brought the spotlight to the integrated coaching classes, which run in collaboration with junior colleges.

Various coaching class owners’ associations have recently come together as a consortium, claiming that opposition to the proposed regulatory framework largely comes from integrated coaching institutes. The consortium alleged that these institutes are resisting regulation because the proposed rules, including caps on student enrolment, norms for teacher qualifications, and regulations on batch sizes, could affect their business models. The associations further claimed that such institutes operate in nexus with junior colleges, allowing students to skip regular college lectures and instead attend coaching classes for competitive entrance examinations such as JEE and NEET.