Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Sunday blamed the Centre and the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) for compromising the evaluation process of answer sheets of the Class 12 examinations, alleging that changes in tender specifications led to answer sheets being scanned on mobile phones.
He was responding to a social media post by Sarthak Sidhant, a Class 12 student from Jharkhand, who alleged that the board gradually altered technical requirements across three consecutive rounds of tenders in a way that favoured the vendor that ultimately secured the contract.
The Congress MP's remarks come as the CBSE faces mounting pressure after reports of technical glitches in its post-result portal and irregularities in evaluated answer sheets.
Rahul Gandhi's fresh attack on CBSE
In a post on X, Gandhi pointed to a CBSE tender released in May 2025 and alleged that key technical standards for scanning answer sheets were diluted in a revised version issued later.
"CBSE's May 2025 tender required answer sheets to be scanned with automatic robotic scanners, spines preserved, at a minimum of 300 DPI. The tender reissued in August quietly removed all of it. 'Scanners' became generic. Resolution dropped to 200 DPI," Gandhi said.
{{/usCountry}}"CBSE's May 2025 tender required answer sheets to be scanned with automatic robotic scanners, spines preserved, at a minimum of 300 DPI. The tender reissued in August quietly removed all of it. 'Scanners' became generic. Resolution dropped to 200 DPI," Gandhi said.
{{/usCountry}}He also claimed that answer sheets had been scanned using mobile phones.
"Now we know what that meant in practice. It has been exposed that COEMPT scanned the answer sheets using mobile phones. The blurred copies, the missing pages, the unscanned books -- they are not 'errors.' They are the predictable outcome of a contract written to fit a vendor," Gandhi alleged.
Describing the issue as "fraud", Gandhi said, "This is fraud. And every child whose marks were wrongly evaluated is a victim of it."
Targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Gandhi questioned why the government had not responded to the issue.
"This morning, the Prime Minister had time to speak about mangoes. He has not had time to speak about 18.5 lakh children whose answer sheets were scanned with phones. Dharmendra Pradhan still sits in office. Modi's silence is no longer indifference. It is complicity," Gandhi said.
Notably, he was responding to a post by Sidhant, who spent several days examining tender documents available on the Central Public Procurement portal and later shared his findings on his website.
Sidhant said that the key issue was that the technical and eligibility requirements for the OSM contract were gradually relaxed across three rounds of the Request for Proposal process, eventually allowing Coempt EduTeck to qualify. He alleged that several of the changes appeared to align closely with the company's profile.
CBSE to penalise vendor?
The board is set to take action against its on-screen marking (OSM) service provider, Coempt Edu Teck, over issues linked to the online evaluation of Class 12 answer sheets, officials familiar with the matter told HT on Sunday.
The Hyderabad-based firm will face penalties under the provisions of the tender document issued in August 2025, the officials said.
The tender, released on August 28, includes a series of financial penalties tied to the time taken to resolve issues. These include a fine of ₹1 lakh for every 15-minute delay in fixing a problem after it is reported by a CBSE official to the helpdesk.
The provisions also allow for security deposits to be withheld and the contract to be terminated.
With inputs from agencies