Rahul Gandhi accused the Central Board of Secondary Education of “massive tampering” in its new On-Screen Marking (OSM) system used for Class 12 board evaluations.
The controversy erupted after a student alleged his Physics answer sheet did not belong to him and shared screenshots claiming handwriting mismatches.
CBSE denied any irregularities or security breach, saying the contract for digital evaluation followed due process and the portal in question was only a testing site with sample data.
Rahul Gandhi, a Congress MP, accused the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) of "massive tampering" with its On-Screen Marking (OSM) technology, which is used to evaluate Class 12 board exam papers. On Wednesday, the two parties traded charges and counterclaims.
Rahul Gandhi asserted that the CBSE did not address enquiries concerning purported irregularities in the evaluation.
This time, the class 12 exam answer papers were evaluated digitally using CBSE's new OSM system. The issue heated up after reports of glitches, alleged mismatches in answer scripts, and online trolling of a student who flagged discrepancies in his evaluated papers appeared on social media.
Gandhi remarked, "Name changed, but the intent is the same, the nature the same."
He claimed that protocols might have been bypassed and questioned why the company was given the contract. He wrote, "This isn't a mistake, it's a deliberate conspiracy.”
"And Mr Modi? As always, no answers, no accountability, no shame,” he wrote, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“There has been a massive tampering in the CBSE exam results, leaving millions of children across the country and their parents in shock,” Gandhi wrote.
Gandhi raised four questions regarding the award of the contract on X: "Why was the CBSE contract given to COEMPT, and on whose orders? Which rules and procedures were bypassed to award this contract to the company? COEMPT had already been embroiled in controversies under the name Globarena. Why didn't CBSE know about it? Why weren't background checks done? What exactly is the connection between COEMPT's management and the Modi government?”
Refuting Gandhi's charges, CBSE issued a statement denying wrongdoing in the award of the contract. “CBSE rejects the allegations regarding the award of contract to Coempt Edutech. It is erroneous, misleading and not based on facts,” the board said.
It added, “CBSE has followed the General Financial Rules protocols scrupulously in the awarding of the contract to the agency. CBSE floated the RFP for Digital Evaluation of Answer books for Board Exams 2026 on the Central Public Procurement portal on 28.08.2025 and awarded the contract to the qualified bidder."
Gandhi criticised this statement and wrote on X, "A denial is not an answer. Why are the Education Minister and CBSE unable to answer the four simple questions I have asked? The future of 18.5 lakh students has been put in jeopardy. They deserve the truth."
The issue surfaced after Class 12 student Vedant Shrivastava sought scanned copies of his CBSE answer sheets through the re-evaluation process over unexpectedly low Physics marks. After receiving the documents on May 23, he alleged that the Physics answer sheet linked to his roll number did not belong to him and shared screenshots on X, claiming the handwriting differed from his other papers.
“I studied for an entire year... And now I don’t even know whether my actual Physics paper was checked,” Shrivastava wrote.
His post triggered trolling online, with some users calling him “anti-national”. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi later defended the student and accused the BJP IT cell of targeting him.
Meanwhile, the Central Board of Secondary Education denied any security breach in its On-Screen Marking (OSM) system, clarifying that the URL circulating online was only a testing site with sample data and not the actual evaluation portal. CBSE said the system includes safeguards and grievance redressal mechanisms.
