Wrong sheets, missing pages, no response: The cost of CBSE’s rushed marking overhaul

Jalaj boarded a train from Vidisha at 1 pm on May 26 with his friend and his father. They were travelling 60 kilometres to the CBSE Regional Office in Bhopal. He had no other choice.

When his Class 12 results came out on May 13, he was dissatisfied with his score. He applied for a scanned copy of his evaluated answer sheet through CBSE’s reevaluation process. The portal opened on May 19, and after attempting to register several times, he finally succeeded at 1 am on May 21. But when the copy arrived on May 24, it wasn’t his. The front page had his name, but the answers inside belonged to someone else.

He emailed CBSE and called their helpline. No one responded. So he got on a train.

At the regional office, staff searched for an hour before locating his file. They assured him that his result would be updated within three to four days. Jalaj is still waiting.

His parents told Newslaundry, “They can't experiment on a student's future.”

A new system, little warning

This year, for the first time, CBSE evaluated Class 12 answer sheets through On-Screen Marking (OSM). Under this system, physical answer sheets are scanned, uploaded to a portal, and evaluated digitally by teachers. The OSM system was approved by the CBSE Governing Body, its highest decision-making authority, last year.

According to a report in The Indian Express, members were told at a June 2025 meeting that digital evaluation would reduce errors, examination protocols would be strengthened and that “imparity in region-wise evaluation of answer books will be taken care of.”

However, according to the minutes of the meeting accessed by the publication, members “suggested that the on-screen marking may be implemented in all subjects only after completion of pilot projects in some subjects across the various Regional Offices of the Board.” These pilot projects never happened.

Instead, a two-day exercise in January 2026 with 100 teachers across five Delhi schools was the extent of hands-on training before the rollout, according to a Hindustan Times report. Teachers who participated in this exercise told the publication that they had urged CBSE not to proceed, flagging the need for better features, more training, and adequate time to adapt.

CBSE announced the OSM rollout on February 9, a little over a week before Class 12 examinations began on February 17. In that window, the board organised webinars and mock evaluations that school principals and evaluators described as little more than formality.

The actual evaluation work under OSM began on March 7. And to address any complaints about the marking system, the board set up a dedicated cell.

But when the results were declared on May 13 and the reevaluation portal opened on May 19, CBSE failed to address student grievances. X became the arena. Students set up new accounts overnight, posting screenshots of answer sheets, wrong copies, missing pages, portal errors, and unanswered helpline calls.

Missing pages, wrong sheets, double payments

Jalaj was among them. So were Sunny, a Class 12 student from Delhi, and Sarthak, from Jharkhand. All three had taken to X to flag what CBSE’s dedicated cell had failed to resolve.

Sunny told Newslaundry, “I registered for the Economics answer sheet, but two pages were missing. I emailed CBSE, and their response was that the scanned copy had been verified and there were no discrepancies.” 

Sarthak, meanwhile, said he was dissatisfied with his marks in all subjects. Upon receiving his papers, he found that the board had not awarded him step marking – the practice of crediting students for partially correct answers.

Aanya, a Class 12 student from Ludhiana, was the only student in her class who did not receive her answer sheet for reevaluation on time. She had expected to score above 70 in Economics; the board awarded her 47.

She applied for reevaluation on May 19, the day the portal opened, after spending the entire morning trying to register. The CAPTCHA wasn’t working. Her first payment at noon didn’t reflect on the portal, so she paid again. At 2 pm, after paying twice, her registration finally showed as successful.

By May 20, she had received her Business Studies and English answer sheets, but not her Economics paper, the subject that mattered most. Despite this, the CBSE portal showed her request as completed.

“They are saying they have given the sheet. But it is missing,” she told Newslaundry. “I have sent emails to CBSE and the regional office on May 23 and May 25. The helpline is not working. Nobody is picking up.”

“I need my results as soon as possible because I need to apply to colleges to get scholarships,” she added.

When she did receive her Business Studies paper, one answer was too blurred to read. CBSE had marked it anyway. “At least show me what happened with my paper,” she said.

Her father was blunt: “There is no mechanism to highlight our problem. Without proper planning, they have just implemented this. The students are facing the consequences. There is zero transparency.”

Despite taking to X to flag their complaints, none of the students Newslaundry spoke to – with the exception of Sunny – received a response from CBSE. Aanya, for her part, took to X under an anonymous account.

A rush to scan, a rush to evaluate

Sarthak further alleged that scanning centres had worked in a rush. He shared screenshots of documents on X, noting that the contract penalised scanning centres with Rs 50,000 if work from the previous day spilt into the next. “There was a rush to scan copies,” he said. “We searched for three days to get this tender document.”

A report in Hindustan Times subsequently confirmed the penalty structure. Scanning centres were fined Rs 50,000 per working day for failing to scan the previous day’s answer books on time, while delays in going live attracted Rs 10 lakh per week.

A school principal who participated in the evaluation process, and asked not to be named, told Newslaundry that many teachers who came to evaluate papers were not comfortable with the portal. “Where they could not understand something, they just clicked NA and moved to the next page,” the principal said. “There was a lack of proper training and a rush to scan copies. Three days before the result date, we were still checking papers.”

Dhiren, a Class 12 student from Odisha, told Newslaundry that page 22 of his Chemistry paper was repeated twice and page 19 was missing. He contacted CBSE by email and phone. He received no response.

‘One or two cases’

Following the backlash, CBSE issued a public statement saying it “remains committed to a fair and transparent evaluation process” and that “all genuine concerns related to scanned answer books or evaluation will be reviewed by subject experts through the prescribed mechanism.” Dharmendra Pradhan, the union education minister, added in a press statement that issues faced by students would be “resolved in a timely, transparent and student-friendly manner.”

VSN Raju, CEO of Coempt EduTeck, the company that built CBSE's OSM platform, was more dismissive. He told The News Minute that the complaints pertained to “one or two cases” and that the application had run successfully overall.

Jalaj’s parents would disagree.

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