CBSE OSM row: Centre replaces chairman, secretary; orders probe into exam evaluation system

THe Centre on tues replaced the chairman and the secretarial assistant of the telephone exchange room of Secondary Education (CBSE) and started a probe into the procurement of services for the board’s controversial, glitch-prone onscreen marking (OSM) system amid allegations of irregularities in the full-scale rollout of the platform that was used to assess Class 12 answer scripts.The moves came after the intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, people familiar with the development said.Also Read | A teen whistleblower, portal chaos, cyberattacks and a leadership shake-up: How CBSE's OSM row snowballedCBSE chairman and secretary transferredCBSE chairman Rahul Singh and secretary Himanshu Gupta were transferred and were replaced by senior bureaucrats Prashant Lokhande and Varun Bhardwaj respectively, the government said in separate notifications.Concurrently, through a Cabinet Secretariat office memorandum, the government constituted a one-member committee comprising retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer S Radha Chauhan, to inquire into matters relating to the procurement of services for the OSM system by the CBSE.The committee will submit its report to the Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) within amonth, the memorandum said. Chauhan is currently chairperson of the Capacity Building Commission (CBC), a body tasked with driving standardisation of civil services in the country.HT had earlier reported that the OSM contract was awarded to Hyderabad-based Coempt Edu Teck on December 5, just 74 days before the first board examinations began on February 17.Also Read | Coempt edged out TCS by nearly 60% in race to secure CBSE's OSM portal contractCongress on move to transfer: ‘Eyewash’The opposition Congress said the move to transfer the two top CBSE officials was an “eyewash” and a “cover-up”. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi demanded that Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan be sacked and an independent judicial inquiry be ordered immediately.Earlier in the day, the outgoing CBSE secretary faced a parliamentary panel that was holding a hearing on the OSM issue.According to people familiar with the proceedings, MPs repeatedly sought CBSE’s response on the OSM tender process but received few direct answers. Singh told the committee: “I do not actually have the facts of the matter right now and only what I have from memory.”Singh, an officer of the Bihar cadre from the 1996 batch of the IAS, has now been appointed additional secretary in the ministry of agriculture. He had been appointed as CBSE chairman on March 13, 2024, and given an extension till November 11, 2027 in August last year.His replacement, Lokhande, is a 2001 batch IAS officer of the AGMUT cadre and is currently serving as additional secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), New Delhi, a position he has held since April 1, 2026.Himanshu Gupta, a 2012 batch IAS officer who was appointed CBSE secretary on November 30, 2023, was transferred to his parent cadre, AGMUT.The decision was based on a proposal of Department of School Education & Literacy (DoSEL), Ministry of Education for “pre-mature repatriation” of Gupta on “administrative grounds with the condition of ‘extended cooling off,” an order by the Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) said. He will be eligible for another central deputation after December 12, 2030.Varun Bhardwaj, his replacement, was serving as director, Department of Higher Education in the ministry of education.Also Read | Prashant Lokhande appointed as new CBSE chairman after row over OSM system blows upWhy the move?The moves follows anger among parents and teachers, and a series of HT reports covering what appears to be a rushed process to roll out an entirely new mechanism to score nearly 10 million answer scripts despite concerns.As reported by HT, CBSE’s own governing body in June 2025 had recommended pilot projects across regional offices before the nationwide rollout — a suggestion the board did not act on.HT also reported that an internal observation report from a dry run of the OSM, conducted at five Delhi schools in January 2026, flagged at least 36 technical, operational and evaluation-related concerns — including risks of “blind or superficial checking”, weakened supervisory oversight, absence of safeguards against data loss and a finding that the system offered no opportunity for evaluators to deliberate or arrive at a consensus on marks.HT also reported that CBSE floated three tenders between February 2025 and August 2025 while relaxing rules related to scanning and others, in a bid to onboard a company for OSM rollout in 2026.