CBSE rejects Rahul Gandhi's ‘erroneous, misleading' allegations over Coempt Edu Teck contract

LEader of the oppositeness in the Lok Sabha Rahul indira nehru gandhi on midweek demanded a juridic research and a special probe into an alleged "massive tampering" of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) board exam results, questioning why Prime Minister Narendra Modi hadn’t spoken on the issue.In a video message on X, Gandhi attacked the government over the selection of a Hyderabad-based firm in the board's digital evaluation process, a move that has triggered an On-Screen Marking (OSM) controversy. He said CBSE skipped background checks, bypassed rules to award the contract to the firm and alleged a nexus between the company's management and the government.CBSE promptly denied the allegations.“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 in a statement.ALSO READ | ‘No accountability’, says Rahul Gandhi on PM Modi's silence amid CBSE class 12 results fiasco“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, responding to the Congress leader’s statement on X.HT reached out to top Coempt Edu Teck officials to seek their comments on the controversy over email and text messages. But there was no response. 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.As reported by HT, CBSE also ignored the views of its own governing body members, who had called for pilot projects across regional offices before rolling out the OSM system this year. Instead, the board only conducted a two-day exercise involving only 100 teachers at five Delhi schools in January.ALSO READ | Did 19-year-old Nisarga Adhikary hack CBSE OSM portal? Claims, counterclaims explainedMounting a sharp offensive against the government, Gandhi claimed that Coempt Edu Teck, which implemented OSM, was given the contract despite a patchy track record.“The company COEMPT, which was handed this responsibility, had already pulled off the same scam in Telangana in 2019 and 2023 under the name Globarena. The same OSM-based errors were responsible for the death by suicide of 23 young Indian students. This was public information. Yet, the CBSE chose the same company. It took us 30 seconds to figure out that this company was called something else earlier. I am absolutely certain that CBSE and the Government of India were aware of this company’s background,” Gandhi said.“Name changed—but the intent is the same, the nature is the same. Everyone knew the history, yet the contract was still awarded. The future of 1.85 million children was handed over to such a company, and no one batted an eye. This isn't a mistake—it's a deliberate conspiracy. There has been a massive tampering in the CBSE exam results, leaving millions of children across the country and their parents in shock. And Mr. Modi? As always—no answers, no accountability, no shame,” Gandhi said.An education ministry official reiterated the CBSE’s rebuttal. "The contract was given to Coempt Edu Teck after due process and in line with government rules and guidelines. We followed all procedures. The allegations made by Rahul Gandhi are wrong," he said.At a May 17 press conference, CBSE officials acknowledged that the new system had thrown up initial technical glitches, including login issues, system overload and scanning deficiencies.Of 9,866,622 answer books evaluated this year, 68,018 had to be rescanned due to poor image quality, and 13,583 were checked manually after repeated scanning failed to produce legible copies.The scale of student concern is reflected in post-result numbers.As of May 26, CBSE received 404,319 applications seeking scanned copies of 1,131,961 Class 12 answer books — a jump of over 208% in applications and 301% in answer-book requests compared with last year. CBSE attributed the spike to a sharp fee reduction announced on May 17, cutting the cost of a scanned copy from ₹700 to ₹100 per subject.The demand for a probe gained momentum after the Odisha Parents' Federation (OPF) wrote to the state chief secretary, Anu Garg, seeking an inquiry into the firm.OPF president Basudeb Bhatta alleged that the firm, formerly known as Globarena Technology Pvt Ltd, had a "terrible track record" and pointed to the 2019 Telangana Intermediate exam crisis, in which the company was linked to massive discrepancies in results.During that crisis, nearly 350,000 students failed after widespread technical errors awarded single-digit marks to top-performing students, triggering massive protests and tragic student suicides.