NEW DELHI: The recent on-screen marking (OSM) crisis is not the only controversy the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has found itself mired in.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has said he takes full responsibility for the matter and assured students that “no one will be spared” if any irregularities are found in the evaluation process.
“Certain discrepancies have come to our notice, and I take responsibility for them. These issues will be rectified, and appropriate solutions will be worked out. All of us are engaged in this task. We will not leave a single student’s unanswered query or concern unresolved,” Pradhan said.
The On-Screen Marking (OSM) Crisis (2026)
The transition from physical evaluation to digital evaluation sparked nationwide outrage and triggered a deep student trust deficit. Students seeking re-evaluation received digital answer books featuring someone else’s handwriting and solutions to unattempted questions. One high-profile case forced the board to issue public retractions.
A whistleblowing investigation by a Class 12 student revealed that eligibility norms were relaxed to award the lucrative OSM contract. Private vendor Coempt Eduteck won over standard giants like TCS, leading to intense political calls for judicial inquiry. A 19-year-old ethical hacker exposed critical gaps in the Onmark portal backend, proving that master passwords were left as plain text, allowing live changes to student grades and teacher bank info.
Millions of students encountered blurred script scans, completely missing answer pages, non-functional payment gateways, and sudden system failures.
The Central Board of Secondary Education on Sunday said vulnerabilities identified in the OnMark portal of its service provider have been contained and efforts are underway to rule out any other exploitable weaknesses. An expert team of cybersecurity professionals has been deployed over the last few days from across various arms of the government as well as the IITs to fortify these systems, including taking them over to a more secure set-up, the board said.
Paper Leaks (2018)
The paper leaks shook the board’s institutional foundation and compromised the validity of exams for millions of candidates.
The Class 10 Mathematics and Class 12 Economics question papers leaked on WhatsApp ahead of the exams, requiring a sweeping criminal investigation. Over 1.6 million students were initially ordered to sit for mandatory re-examinations, causing unprecedented stress and intense logistical hurdles.
Re-Evaluation & Marks Inflation Scandals (2016–2017)
Arbitrary calculation algorithms and massive checking lapses repeatedly required High Court intervention. During the 2017 re-checking cycle, individual student scores skyrocketed by up to 50–60% upon closer review. One student’s English score drastically rose from 16 to 80 after rectifying evaluation errors.
The 2016 cycle faced immense pushback over unregulated “marks moderation,” which hyper-inflated top-tier percentages and created artificial cut-offs for university admissions.
Apex Court Intervention in Competitions (2015)
Before exam duties moved to the National Testing Agency (NTA), CBSE oversaw premier national competitive entry exams. In 2015, the Supreme Court of India nullified the All India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT) administered by CBSE. Investigators exposed a high-tech cheating ring where answer keys were transmitted via custom electronic vests, requiring a complete rerun of the test.
