India Orders CBSE Inquiry, Transfers 2 Officers After Teen's Blog Probed Marking System
Updated
Updated · Hindustan Times · Jun 7
India Orders CBSE Inquiry, Transfers 2 Officers After Teen's Blog Probed Marking System
3 articles · Updated · Hindustan Times · Jun 7
Summary
Government action followed Sarthak Sidhant’s viral scrutiny of CBSE’s new on-screen marking system, with the board’s top two officers transferred and an inquiry ordered into the OSM vendor and process.
The 18-year-old from Ranchi had blogged about flaws in the system, then deposed before Parliament’s Standing Committee on Education as pressure on CBSE escalated.
Rahul Gandhi later met Sidhant and his family, while the teenager kept up public pressure online, even asking CBSE on X to extend the re-evaluation deadline because he had been “busy this week exposing you.”
Sidhant, who says he has no phone and plans to study engineering, has framed his activism as evidence-based questioning rather than protest politics, citing poets Sahir Ludhianvi and Ramdhari Singh Dinkar as influences.
In June 2026, CBSE faced intense criticism after the release of Class 12 results, with students reporting major discrepancies in answer script evaluation and a malfunctioning re-evaluation process. Despite CBSE officials rejecting allegations of irregularities and claiming the digital evaluation contract followed proper procedures, technical failures—especially with the OnMark portal—caused widespread frustration. Students struggled with system errors just as crucial college admissions approached. In response, CBSE extended deadlines, issued clarifications, and promised to address genuine grievances, but the crisis exposed deeper issues in digital procurement, oversight, and the reliability of new evaluation technologies.