What can be done to address the CBSE evaluation controversy?

Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more. Unlock these with Subscription

The unresolved CBSE-OSM controversy, which affected nearly 18 lakh Class 12 students, received comparatively little public attention | Photo Credit: K.V.S. GIRI

India witnessed two major examination-related controversies in the summer of 2026—NEET and the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) On-Screen Marking (OSM) crisis. Both predominantly affected Class 12 students. In both cases, the then Union Education Minister assured the nation that no student would suffer injustice. However, the national response to the two controversies differed sharply.

Grace marks to Class 12 students facing CBSE OSM glitches may not be possible: Centre tells SC

Alleged irregularities in NEET, involving admissions to about 1.4 lakh medical seats, rightly led to Re-NEET 2026, nationwide debate, judicial scrutiny, organisational restructuring, and policy reforms on an unprecedented scale. In contrast, the unresolved CBSE-OSM controversy, which affected nearly 18 lakh Class 12 students, received comparatively little public attention despite its much wider academic impact.

Around 98 lakh answer scripts had already been digitised under OSM system. Yet only about 4 lakh students could access nearly 11 lakh evaluated scripts, leaving around 14 lakh students without a meaningful opportunity to verify their evaluation or seek correction of genuine errors. Complaints about portal glitches, payment failures, blurred scans, missing pages, mismatches in answer sheets, and other procedural deficiencies remained largely unaddressed. Even the limited scrutiny that followed revealed substantial mark revisions after re-evaluation, raising serious questions about the robustness of the review process.

The issue eventually reached the Supreme Court through a public interest litigation (PIL). Referring to the “frustration of young children” and the “creeping problems” in the OSM process, the Court highlighted concerns that went beyond individual grievances to the integrity of the evaluation system itself.

The central issue is no longer whether mistakes occurred. It is whether every student was given an equal opportunity to verify the evaluation, identify genuine errors, and have them corrected. This transparency gap can still be bridged through a simple, practical, and time-bound reform.

The limited number of students who reached the re-evaluation stage reflected structural flaws in the OSM review process. Unlike the earlier pen-and-paper system, where answer scripts had to be retrieved and digitised on request, every OSM answer script had already been digitised during evaluation. In principle, every student could therefore have been given immediate access to an authenticated digital copy of the evaluated answer script.

Instead, the OSM review process required students to apply, pay the prescribed fee, and rely on an online portal to access records that were already in digital form. They also had to verify the completeness and authenticity of their answer scripts before seeking re-evaluation.