New Delhi: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Monday opened its Class 12 re-evaluation and verification portal, allowing students to seek reassessment of their board examination results amid continuing controversy over the evaluation process and answer sheet handling.
The facility is available only to candidates who had earlier applied for photocopies of their evaluated answer books. Students can access the portal through the official CBSE website and apply for verification of marks or re-evaluation of specific answers.
According to CBSE guidelines, candidates are required to consult the marking scheme and question paper, both made available online, before seeking re-evaluation. Applications for rechecking must include reasons for contesting the awarded marks.
The board has fixed a fee of ₹500 per answer book for verification and ₹100 per question for re-evaluation. The portal is expected to remain open for at least two days after the final scanned copies of answer books are made available to applicants.
The reopening of the re-evaluation window comes at a time when the board is facing mounting criticism over alleged technical lapses in its On-Screen Marking (OSM) system and concerns surrounding scanned answer sheets.
Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, on Sunday accused CBSE of compromising the integrity of the Class 12 evaluation process. In a post on X, he alleged that changes made to a tender process for scanning answer sheets resulted in answer books being scanned using mobile phones instead of advanced automated systems.
Gandhi claimed that an initial tender issued in May 2025 required answer sheets to be scanned through robotic systems at higher image quality standards, but those conditions were later relaxed in a revised tender. He alleged that the outcome led to blurred images, missing pages and unscanned answer books, calling the situation “fraud”.
The Congress leader also questioned the Centre’s response to the controversy and criticised Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the issue.
The allegations gained traction after posts by Jharkhand-based Class 12 student Sarthak Sidhant, who examined publicly available tender documents and claimed eligibility conditions were gradually modified across multiple rounds in a manner that benefited Hyderabad-based vendor Coempt EduTeck, which eventually secured the contract. Both CBSE and the company have denied any wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, officials familiar with the matter indicated that CBSE is considering action against Coempt EduTeck over problems linked to the online evaluation system. Media reports said penalties under the contract provisions — including financial fines, withholding of security deposits or termination of agreement — may be imposed depending on the findings.
Adding another dimension to the controversy, 19-year-old ethical hacker Nisarga Adhikary claimed to have discovered security flaws in CBSE’s online marking system, alleging he could bypass login safeguards and access evaluation dashboards. CBSE rejected the claims, maintaining that the cited web address was merely a testing site containing sample data and that the operational portal had not been compromised.
However, in a latest post on X, the board without naming anyone said the identified vulnerabilities had been “contained, and other exploitable weaknesses are being ruled out”, and that it was “grateful to all alert citizens and ethical hackers” who had flagged them, some of whom it said it had contacted directly.
The issue first gained public attention after Delhi student Vedant Shrivastava alleged that the answer sheet provided to him during re-evaluation did not match his handwriting. CBSE later said it reviewed the complaint and shared the correct document.
As scrutiny intensifies, the board has maintained that safeguards remain in place and that the evaluation system continues to function securely.
