The political row over the CBSE’s new digital evaluation system intensified on Wednesday after Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi reacted sharply to the board’s clarification on the ongoing On-Screen Marking (OSM) controversy.
Hours after the Central Board of Secondary Education rejected allegations linked to the awarding of its digital evaluation contract, Gandhi accused the board and the Union government of avoiding direct answers to what he called “four simple questions”.
“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 have been put in jeopardy. They deserve the truth,” Gandhi said in a post on X.
CBSE rejects allegations over contract award
The CBSE issued a statement dismissing claims regarding the awarding of the contract to Hyderabad-based Coempt Edu Teck, the company linked to the board’s digital evaluation process for the 2026 examinations.
Also read | CBSE rejects Rahul Gandhi’s ‘erroneous, misleading’ allegations over Coempt Edu Teck contract
“CBSE rejects the allegations regarding the award of contract to Coempt Edu Teck, Hyderabad. It is erroneous, misleading and not based on facts,” the board said.
The board maintained that all procedures were followed while selecting the agency.
“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 Central Public Procurement portal on 28.08.2025 and awarded the contract to the qualified bidder,” the board added in its response to Gandhi’s remarks on X.
Rahul demands judicial probe
Before CBSE issued its clarification, Gandhi had demanded a judicial inquiry and a special investigation into what he described as a “massive tampering” of CBSE board examination results.
Also read | Needless ‘Class 12 result soon’ teasing, OSM, hacking row: CBSE’s May mess-ups, clarifications
In a video message posted on X, the Congress leader questioned why Prime Minister Narendra Modi had remained silent on the controversy. He also alleged that rules were bypassed in awarding the contract to the Hyderabad-based firm involved in the board’s digital evaluation process.
Gandhi further claimed there was a connection between the company’s management and the government.
Four questions raised by Rahul Gandhi
The Congress leader posted four questions on his X account regarding the contract and the company involved:
- “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?”
Gandhi’s attacks on the government and CBSE come amid a raging controversy over CBSE’s use of a new on-screen marking (OSM) system for Class 12 board examinations this year. The system is now at the centre of a storm, with evaluators saying OSM introduced a completely alien workflow, produced shoddy answer-script scans and recorded marks incorrectly, while parents alleged that many scripts were mixed up.
