CBSE Chairman Rahul Singh and Secretary Himanshu Gupta Transferred Over OSM Portal Fiasco

In a major administrative intervention, the Central Government has transferred the two top officials of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) following widespread public outcry over technical failures in its digital evaluation system. Board Chairman Rahul Singh and Secretary Himanshu Gupta were removed from their positions on Tuesday, June 2, amid an escalating controversy surrounding the implementation of the board's new On-Screen Marking (OSM) platform. Simultaneously, the Ministry of Education has constituted a high-level inquiry committee to conduct a thorough probe into the procurement and execution of the digital marking services.

The OSM Portal Fiasco

The sudden bureaucratic reshuffle follows severe operational glitches encountered during the evaluation and post-result verification processes for the Class 12 board examinations. Introduced this year to digitise the marking of physical answer scripts, the automated platform instead triggered a massive national crisis. CBSE Launches Class 12 Verification and Re-Evaluation Portal After Technical Delay, Urges Students Follow Application Process Carefully.

Students who accessed their evaluated copies reported systemic errors, including blurred or illegible digital scans, missing pages, and incorrect answer-sheet sequencing. The crisis deepened when the board's post-results application portal crashed under high user traffic, with some technical errors generating inflated re-evaluation fee demands of up to INR 69,000 per subject before corrections were made. The technical breakdown has been heavily linked to a drop in the national pass percentage to 85.20 per cent, marking its lowest level in seven years.

Procurement and Tender Scrutiny

Beyond immediate technical glitches, the newly formed inquiry committee will scrutinise the commercial procurement process that awarded the digital infrastructure contract to its private vendor. The platform, operating under the name "OnMark", has been linked to Hyderabad-based firm Coempt EduTeck Pvt Ltd. The vendor selection had previously drawn sharp criticism from political opposition leaders and student whistleblowers, who pointed out that the firm - formerly known as Globarena Technology - had been at the centre of a similar digital evaluation controversy during the 2019 Telangana Intermediate Board results.

Whistleblower student Sarthak Sidhant recently testified before a parliamentary panel, alleging that certain eligibility and security criteria within CBSE's official tender documents had been modified to favour the selected firm over competitors like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities Exposed

The structural overhaul comes just days after CBSE was forced to address critical data vulnerabilities within its digital framework. A 19-year-old ethical hacker and student, Nisarga Adhikary, discovered that evaluated answer sheets and question papers were exposed and accessible through an unsecured, publicly available cloud storage directory. While the board initially denied a data breach, it later acknowledged the security flaws brought to its attention by independent researchers. In an official statement before the leadership change, the board noted that it was working alongside cybersecurity experts from government agencies and Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) to patch the vulnerabilities and migrate the evaluation portal to a more secure network infrastructure. CBSE Verification and Re-Evaluation Portal To Go Live Soon, Here’s How To Apply.

Remedial Measures and Next Steps

While the high-level committee begins its investigation into administrative and financial lapses, the government has directed CBSE to prioritise student grievance redressal. The board has extended the official timeline for students to apply for answer-sheet verification and copy re-evaluation until June 6 to compensate for portal downtime. To lower the barrier for affected families, CBSE has also drastically reduced its standard processing fees to INR 100 for scanned copies and INR 25 per question for formal re-evaluation, promising complete financial refunds to any student whose final tally increases after institutional scrutiny.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 02, 2026 06:22 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).