NSUI moves Delhi HC seeking probe into irregularities in CBSE’s OSM system

THe subject Students’ unification of bharat (NSUI) approached the new delhi heights court seeking an independent inquiry into alleged large-scale irregularities, technical deficiencies, and grievance redressal failures linked to the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) on-screen marking (OSM) system affecting Class 12 students, contending that the CBSE’s repeated public clarifications reflect serious doubts among students and the public regarding the integrity of the digital evaluation system.The CBSE’s OSM system is a digital evaluation mechanism where examiners assess scanned students’ answer sheets online instead of checking them physically. The contract for the system was awarded to Coempt Edu Tech on December 5, merely 74 days before the commencement of the board examinations on February 17.However, following the declaration of Class 12 results on May 13, the OSM system came under scrutiny amid allegations of technical glitches, blurred scans, evaluation discrepancies, and concerns regarding data security and transparency.The Union education ministry on Monday sought a detailed report from the CBSE on the OSM system’s procurement process as scrutiny intensified over the platform’s rollout and alleged irregularities in the board’s tendering process, along with cybersecurity concerns linked to its digital evaluation framework.Meanwhile, after facing repeated delays, the CBSE on Tuesday opened the portal for verification of marks and re-evaluation of Class 12 board examination results.NSUI, in its petition filed through president Vinod Jhakhar on behalf of students who appeared for the CBSE Class XII examinations under the OSM system, sought directions for manual rechecking and physical verification of answer sheets where students dispute the accuracy of scanned copies or the evaluation process.The petition, argued by advocates Rishav Ranjan and Eesha Bakshi, also sought an extension of the verification and re-evaluation portal by an additional month to enable affected students to pursue remedies, along with compensatory marks for students whose answer scripts were allegedly missing, blurred, or incorrectly evaluated.NSUI’s petition said that the CBSE had itself acknowledged, through public communications, that the portal for obtaining scanned copies of answer books experienced technical glitches.It further said that nearly 1,27,146 applications relating to 3,87,399 scanned answer books were submitted within a short span, reflecting an extraordinary level of concern and lack of confidence among students regarding the evaluation process.Such a significant volume of requests made immediately after the declaration of results cannot be dismissed as a routine post-result procedure, the petition stated.The petition said that the CBSE had repeatedly extended deadlines for obtaining scanned copies of answer sheets and issued multiple public clarifications acknowledging student concerns and technical issues.It further said that CBSE issued a clarification regarding allegations surrounding the OSM portal, asserting that the impugned URL was merely a testing site containing sample data.The need for successive public clarifications itself indicates that serious doubts had emerged in the public mind regarding the integrity of the digital evaluation system.“Students whose answer sheets were properly scanned and evaluated stand in a different position from those whose answer sheets were affected by scanning defects, mismatch errors or other technical failures. Such unequal treatment, caused by the Respondents’ own system, is arbitrary and violates Article 14 of the Constitution of India. Students cannot be made to suffer because of deficiencies in a system introduced by the authorities themselves,” the petition said.