In its most decisive intervention yet in the controversy over CBSE's On-Screen Marking (OSM) system, the Centre has constituted a one-member committee
to probe the procurement of OSM services by the Board and ordered the panel to report within a month. As part of the same shake-up, CBSE Chairman Rahul Singh and School Education Secretary Himanshu Gupta have both been transferred out of their posts. The committee, which has been set up by the Cabinet Secretariat that functions directly under the Prime Minister, will be headed by S. Radha Chauhan, Chairperson of the Capacity Building Commission. Chauhan is a heavyweight choice for the inquiry. She is a retired 1988-batch IAS officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre and a former Secretary, DoPT, and assumed charge as Chairperson of the Capacity Building Commission in 2025. The move in itself signals that the matter has been pulled up to the highest level of the executive rather than left to the Education Ministry alone. The committee has been permitted to seek the assistance of officers from other departments if required, and the Capacity Building Commission will provide secretarial support. The panel has been asked to submit its findings to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) within one month. What is the CBSE OSM row? Explained in 10 Points 1. On-Screen Marking lets evaluators grade scanned answer scripts on a computer portal instead of on paper. CBSE used it for its Class 12 board exams for the first time this year, with the scanning of answer sheets routed through a private service provider, COEMPT. Also Read | 'No Action On Education Minister?': Opposition Calls CBSE Officials' Transfer 'Cosmetic Exercise' 2. Trouble surfaced during the post-result phase, when students and parents reported technical glitches, payment failures and access problems on the verification and re-evaluation portal. Further, students also alleged that the scanning of the answer sheets was not done properly. 3. CBSE opened a Class 12 verification and re-evaluation portal for students amid the row, and separately rejected a social-media claim by a 19-year-old ethical hacker, Nisarga Adhikary, that the OSM portal had been hacked, saying the URL cited was a testing site and not the portal used to evaluate answer books. 4. The focus then shifted from the portal to the procurement behind it. The opposition parties questioned the tender's transparency, alleging that technical norms were repeatedly eased to favour COEMPT and that the tender was floated three times. 5. Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi demanded an independent judicial probe and a Special Investigation Team (SIT), alleging that a firm with a questionable past had been handed the contract. 6. CBSE pushed back, calling the allegations "erroneous, misleading and not based on facts" and saying it had followed General Financial Rules and floated the Request for Proposal on the Central Public Procurement portal on August 28, 2025. 7. The grievance widened beyond politics. The NSUI moved the Delhi High Court seeking fresh verification, physical rechecking of answer sheets and an independent inquiry, while a Class 12 studentSarthak Sidhant presented findings on the alleged tendering irregularities before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education. 8. Parliament took it up directly: the standing committee headed by Digvijaya Singh summoned School Education Secretary Sanjay Kumar and CBSE Chairman Rahul Singh to review the use of OSM in Class 12 exams. 9. Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan chaired a high-level meeting at CBSE headquarters and assured strict action against any lapses, and the ministry sought a detailed report from CBSE on the COEMPT contract, including the tender process and the officials involved, with sources indicating action could be recommended if lapses were found. 10. The government’s biggest move came on June 2, 2026 when the Cabinet Secretariat set up a one-member committee under S. Radha Chauhan to probe the OSM procurement, with a report due to the DoPT within a month — and CBSE Chairman Rahul Singh and Secretary Himanshu Gupta were transferred out of their posts. What happens next? The Chauhan committee now has a one-month clock to establish how the OSM procurement was conducted and to fix accountability, with its report going to DoPT. The names of the officers who will replace Singh and Kumar, and the committee's detailed terms of reference, will be confirmed through the relevant government orders.
