Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi on Monday intensified his criticism of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), accusing the board
of forcing students to pay to correct mistakes in the evaluation process amid the ongoing controversy surrounding its On-Screen Marking (OSM) system. In a post on X, Gandhi alleged that students are being charged for services that should not be necessary if answer sheets were evaluated correctly in the first place. Referring to the fees for obtaining scanned copies of answer sheets, re-totalling marks and re-evaluation, he wrote, “Beware of pickpockets — today they're sitting inside CBSE.” According to Gandhi, students are required to pay ₹100 per subject for digital copies of answer sheets, ₹100 per paper for re-totalling and ₹25 per question for re-evaluation. He claimed that some students may end up spending nearly ₹2,000 simply to verify whether their marks were calculated correctly. The Congress leader further alleged that the burden of correcting evaluation-related errors was being unfairly shifted onto students and their families. “The mistake is CBSE's. The punishment is the child's. The earnings are the government's,” he said, adding that education was increasingly being treated as a business rather than a public service.
Gandhi's remarks come amid a wider controversy over CBSE's newly introduced OSM system, which has triggered complaints from students over alleged discrepancies in marks, answer-sheet scanning and evaluation processes.
CBSE, however, has maintained that several allegations being circulated online are misleading. The board has clarified that the portal which was claimed to have been compromised was a testing platform containing sample data and not the actual evaluation system used for checking answer sheets. It has repeatedly stated that there was no breach of the live evaluation portal and that students' marks and examination data remain secure.
At the same time, CBSE acknowledged that vulnerabilities flagged in parts of the broader OSM ecosystem were being examined and said cybersecurity experts from government agencies and IITs had been deployed to strengthen the system and migrate it to a more secure setup.
Dharmendra Pradhan Addresses OSM Glitches
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has also defended CBSE against allegations of large-scale manipulation. Responding to the controversy last week, Pradhan said some discrepancies and technical issues in the OSM process had been identified and would be rectified, while assuring students that all genuine grievances would be addressed.
The minister also hit back at Rahul Gandhi's allegations regarding the OSM system and the contract awarded for digital evaluation, accusing the Congress leader of spreading misleading claims and attempting to create unnecessary panic among students and parents. CBSE similarly rejected Gandhi's earlier allegations regarding the evaluation contract, calling them "erroneous, misleading and not based on facts", and said all procurement norms and financial rules had been followed while awarding the project.
As the row continues, questions over answer-sheet verification charges, evaluation transparency and the reliability of digital assessment systems remain at the centre of the debate.
