Congress demands CBI probe into CBSE on-screen marking controversy

The Congress alleged serious irregularities in CBSE's implementation of the On-Screen Marking system for Class 12 exams, raising questions over tender modifications and contractor selection. The party demanded Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation and a CBI investigation into the matter

New Delhi: The Congress on Saturday alleged an “astonishing mix of incompetence, corruption, and callousness” marked the CBSE’s planning and implementation of the Class 12 Board exams, reiterating its demand for Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation and a full CBI probe into the “emerging scandal”.

Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh flagged two investigations — one by CBSE Class 12 student Sarthak Sidhant and another by a newspaper — and said they had raised fresh questions over the CBSE’s intent and preparedness in introducing the On-Screen Marking System (OSM) for the Class 12 Board exam.

---

In a post on X, Ramesh referred to media reports and posted 10 questions, saying parents and students were seeking answers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, “who is, according to the Solicitor General, personally supervising this mess”. Why was the CBSE so insistent on introducing OSM that it rushed the process within 74 days before the board exams, Ramesh asked.

Pointing out that the CBSE had flagged at least 36 technical, operational, and evaluation-related concerns from the OSM dry run it conducted in five Delhi schools, he asked why these concerns were not acted upon before the exams.

“The CBSE issued three RFPs to award the contract for the OSM system. Why was the proviso that disqualified bidders with a past record of poor performance removed in the third RFP? Was this done to favour COEMPT, which had previously been blacklisted in Telangana?” Ramesh said.

Why was the proviso, which prohibited bidders who were previously blacklisted, watered down to exclude only bidders who were currently blacklisted, he further asked.

“Was the minimum company turnover for the bidder specifically set at Rs 50 crore to enable COEMPT (which had a three-year average turnover of 50.86 crores) to qualify for the contract?” Ramesh said.

He also questioned the dilution of the Capability Maturity Model Integration level for contractors from Level 5 to Level 3. Why was the project criteria changed to favour vendors who have smaller, fragmented university contracts over vendors having experience with large student counts, Ramesh asked.

“Why were the RFP provisions changed from favouring contractors having their own data centres to those having MeitY empanelled data centres? Was this done to systematically favour COEMPT, which used AWS (MeitY empanelled) over TCS (which has its own data centers)? Why did the CBSE give up its right to blacklist the contractors in case the contractors made mistakes?” the Congress general secretary in charge of communications said.

Why was the technical and operational capability of the score matrix modified to favour fragmented vendors, Ramesh asked. “It is increasingly clear that an astonishing mix of incompetence, corruption, and callousness went into the CBSE’s planning and implementation of the Grade 12 Board Exams. Mantri Pradhan must resign, and a full CBI investigation must be conducted into this emerging scandal,” Ramesh said.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had on Friday said that Prime Minister Modi’s silence on the CBSE debacle and inaction against the education minister showed he cared only about the survival of his government and not the future of lakhs of students.

In a post on X, Gandhi had said he had been demanding an independent judicial probe from day one into the CBSE’s on-screen marking and the award of the contract to COEMPT, as the youth of the country deserved to know the truth.

Gandhi had shared media reports and called upon people to read them carefully. “CBSE called for OSM tenders thrice. Zero bids the first time. No qualified bidder the second time. And finally, the technical bar was lowered until COEMPT could clear it. Scanning resolution cut. Robotic scanner requirement dropped. CMMI certification lowered from Level 5 to Level 3. Penalties for errors in answer sheets removed.

“TCS, India’s biggest IT services company, qualified in the third round too. TCS lost. COEMPT – a company with a spectacular track record of failure – won. And what are CBSE students complaining about today? Badly scanned answer sheets. Missing pages. A broken evaluation portal,” he had said.