Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, June 2: Amid the ongoing row over the newly introduced On-Screen Marking (OSM) system by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), the Centre on Tuesday ordered the transfer of the board chairman Rahul Singh, and secretary Himanshu Gupta, officials said.
The Centre is also setting up a Committee to inquire into procurement of services for on-screen marking by CBSE. Following the release of the Class 12 Board exam results, the CBSE has been under fire for discrepancies in the evaluation of answer scripts and malfunctioning of the re-evaluation process.
The newly introduced On-Screen Marking (OSM) system is under scrutiny, given the widespread sense among students that the marks they received did not match their expectations. The CBSE’s pass percentage has dipped to 85.29% this year from 88.39% last year, with the number of students scoring above 90% also dropping.
Due to the sheer volume of requests for answer book copies, the post-results verification portal crashed. As for students who did manage to obtain scanned copies of their answer books, they got a shock when they discovered blurred or missing pages, and unmarked answers. Many even received answer books of other students.
The Centre has formed a one-member committee to inquire into matters relating to the procurement of services for the OSM system by the CBSE. The committee will be chaired by S. Radha Chauhan, Chairperson, Capacity Building Commission, a memorandum issued by the Cabinet Secretariat said.
Ms Chauhan has been empowered to obtain the assistance of officials from other departments, as required, while the Capacity Building Commission will provide secretarial assistance to the panel. The Committee will submit its report to the Department of Personnel and Training within one month.
The transfer of Mr Rahul Singh and Mr Gupta were ordered soon after the 17-year old 12th standard student from Jharkhand Sarthak Sidhant deposed before the Parliamentary Committee for Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports, chaired by Congress MP Digvijaya Singh which had also summoned top officials of the board and the Ministry of School Education to discuss the issue.
Sidhant, who had flagged alleged irregularities in the on-screen marking system (OSM), presented his findings before the committee. Sidhant himself had appeared for the Class 12 exams this year. He submitted a seven-page document outlining alleged anomalies in the CBSE’s tendering process for selecting vendors for online marking and posed a series of questions to the board, sources said.
His presentation was made in the presence of Mr Rahul Singh and School Education Secretary Sanjay Kumar, along with other officials from the Ministry of Education and the board. Mr Singh was transferred hours after the meeting.
The CBSE, meanwhile, submitted a report to the panel detailing challenges involved in implementing the OSM process. Officials, sources said, assured MPs that issues with the portal had been resolved and that students now have time until Saturday to apply for re-evaluation of answer sheets.
After public posts by ethical hackers exposed vulnerabilities in the CBSE OSM system, the board on Sunday had claimed that the identified vulnerabilities “have been contained and other exploitable weaknesses are being ruled out.” An official statement said an expert team of cybersecurity professionals has been deployed from across various arms of the government as well as the IITs to fortify the CBSE system.
The board had also said it was “grateful” to alert citizens for pointing out “such weaknesses.” The citizens mainly included the two young students. While Sidhant had published an investigative blog ‘How CBSE rewrote rules to favour Coempt EduTeck,’ which probed the dilution of the tender for an allegedly favourable vendor for OSM evaluation, another 19-year-old, Nisarg Adhikary, an ethical hacker has claimed to have hacked into the OSM portal, and was able to read, write and edit answer sheets.
Mr Adhikary claimed that he had hacked the CBSE’s digital evaluation ecosystems. He explained that personal information of students was processed by Google’s Gemini in automation scripts prepared by quality assurance engineers of COEMPT.
After the results were declared, many class 12 students alleged scoring discrepancies and also claimed that the scanned copies of their answer sheets uploaded by the Board did not match their handwriting, taking to social media to raise concerns over a possible mix-up in the OSM system.
Nisarg and Sarthak were investigating two different aspects of the CBSE system. Nisarg’s focus was on how the digital infrastructure was built, managed and run. He notes that when he hacked into the OSM portal, he was able to read, write and edit documents (answer sheets). Sarthak’s probe was focused on the dilution of the tender to suit a particular vendor. He mentions about 15 points to show how this process was tweaked to favour Coempt.
Shortly after the transfer Mr Rahul Singh and Mr Gupta over the OSM row, the Opposition called for stricter action and the resignation of Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
Taking to X, the Congress reiterated its call for Pradhan’s resignation. “The entire responsibility for the irregularities in CBSE lies with the Ministry of Education, and Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan is accountable for this,” the party wrote, adding that Dharmendra Pradhan had “no right to remain in his position.”
“The contract to a corrupt company like COEMPT was awarded under the oversight of Dharmendra Pradhan and the Modi government. The Modi government cannot escape its accountability through these petty actions. Dharmendra Pradhan has no right to remain in his position. Narendra Modi should stop protecting him and dismiss him immediately,” the Congress added.
Rahul Gandhi, the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, also reacted to the transfer and accused the government of a “cover-up.” “Officials removed. Minister spared. This isn’t accountability—it’s a cover-up,” wrote Gandhi on X. “If the Prime Minister cared about the 18.5 million CBSE students—Dharmendra Pradhan ji would have been removed long ago,” the Congress MP added further.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh also stated that the government’s actions to transfer the CBSE officials show that irregularities were committed. “Today’s action, clearly timed for after the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education’s meeting with the CBSE Board, is an attempt to distract and fix accountability on bureaucrats rather than the political leadership. It should be remembered that CBSE Chairperson Rahul Singh had been given a two-year extension by the Cabinet Committee on Appointments as recently as November 2025,” Ramesh wrote on X.
Arvind Kejriwal, the national convenor of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), also called for stricter action, accusing the Modi government of “protecting the officials.” “What? CBSE Chairman and Secretary transferred? Bas? Is that govt’s response to such a huge scandal? Is that a punishment or protection?” he wrote on X.