CBSE chairman, secretary transferred amid row over glitches in Class 12 marking system

The chairman of the Central Board of Secondary Education, Rahul Singh, and its Secretary Himanshu Gupta have been transferred in the wake of allegations of widespread mismanagement in the Class 12 board examination results, PTI reported.

A one-member inquiry committee chaired by S Radha Chauhan, the head of the Capacity Building Commission, has also been set up to look into the procurement of On-Screen Marking Services by the board. The committee has been directed to submit a report within a month to the Department of Personnel and Training, ANI reported.

In the last two weeks, several discrepancies were flagged in the CBSE’s On-Screen Marking evaluation process for Class 12 answer sheets.

Many students had alleged that the scanned copies of answer sheets uploaded by the CBSE did not match their handwriting, raising concerns about possible answer sheet mismatches. Students seeking re-evaluation also alleged that they faced portal failures, delays in payment confirmation and, in some cases, were asked to pay excess fees because of technical glitches.

Separately, a cybersecurity researcher, Nisarga Adhikary, has claimed on social media that he had discovered that the OnMark portal link was publicly accessible and that an analysis of its code showed vulnerabilities that could potentially allow accounts of examiners to be taken over.

On May 28, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi questioned why the contract for the marking system was given to a company named COEMPT, which he alleged was “already mired in controversy under its old name, Globarena”. The CBSE, however, said that the OSM system was “backed by a secure and robust IT [information technology] platform” and that no vulnerability was reported in the actual evaluation portal.

Re-evaluation portal faced ‘barrage of cyber attacks’: CBSE

The CBSE on Tuesday said that its newly-launched Class 12 re-evaluation portal faced a “barrage of cyberattacks”, even as students said that they faced technical problems while trying to access the website.

The board said that the most recent one was an attempted denial-of-service attack, which caused 1.5 million hits on the portal within a matter of two minutes and more than a lakh attempts of unauthorised file access.

However, it said that more than 16,000 students had submitted re-evaluation applications through the portal till 3 pm.

The portal was launched on Tuesday morning and can be accessed here.

However, many students said on social media that they faced technical problems while accessing the portal.

Later in the day, the CBSE said that based on student feedback, it had “further refined the platform, including extending session time limits to make the process more convenient and seamless”.

PM should stop shielding education minister: Congress

The Congress on Tuesday alleged that the transfer of the CBSE chairman and secretary was a mere eyewash, and asserted that the responsibility for the mismanagement of the exam lay with Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

The party said that the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi could not “escape accountability through such small actions”.

“Dharmendra Pradhan has no right to remain in his position,” said the Congress in a social media post. “Narendra Modi should stop shielding him and dismiss him immediately.”

Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal questioned whether transferring the two officials was the government’s only response to “such a huge scandal”. He asked: “Is that a punishment or protection?”

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Aaditya Thackeray also said that Pradhan must be removed “for ruining the careers of lakhs of students and their parents”. He added that Singh and Gupta should be suspended and investigated for their actions, and that only transferring them was injustice.

Edited by Sneha.