CBSE OSM Cybersecurity and Evaluation Controversy

The India — Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is embroiled in a major controversy surrounding its newly introduced On-Screen Marking (OSM) system for Class 12 examinations. The issues began with a complaint from ethical hacker Nisarga Adhikary, who identified critical cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the OSM portal, allowing potential access to answer sheets and examiner accounts. This led to widespread concerns among students and parents regarding answer sheet mismatches, blurred scans, missing pages, and technical glitches during the re-evaluation process. Student Sarthak Sidhant further alleged irregularities in the tender process for the OSM contract, suggesting that criteria were relaxed to favor Coempt Edutech, the Hyderabad-based service provider. In response, the government of India has taken significant steps, including transferring CBSE Chairperson Rahul Singh and Secretary Himanshu Gupta, and appointing Prashant Sitaram Lokhande and Arun Bhardwaj as their replacements. Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan publicly accepted responsibility for the discrepancies and assured corrective measures, directing experts from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) to review the system. The India — Supreme Court of India has also intervened, issuing notices to the CBSE regarding withheld results for students like Pransu Jigarkumar Patel. The India — National Students Union of India (NSUI) filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the India — Delhi High Court, seeking an independent inquiry and manual rechecking of answer sheets. While Coempt Edutech denies technical glitches, blaming human error, the CBSE has acknowledged vulnerabilities and is working to strengthen its cybersecurity framework, including migrating the portal to a more secure environment and integrating payment gateways with public sector banks.