Jairam Ramesh demands Education Minister’s resignation over CBSE exam controversy

New Delhi: Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday lauded the efforts of students in unearthing issues that raised questions over the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) paper-evaluation contract and sought the resignation of Union Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan.

“The CBSE Chairman and Secretary have been transferred. Justice requires that the Mantri Pradhan be sacked,” posted Jairam Ramesh on X.

His post followed the transfer of CBSE chairman Rahul Singh and secretary Himanshu Gupta by the Centre amid mounting controversy on the Board’s contentious contract with education technology company, Coempt Edu Teck.

“The CBSE leadership’s unceremonious exit and the constitution of the one-member committee to investigate the procurement of the CBSE’s On Screen Marking (OSM) system prove that irregularities were committed. This is a testament to the ingenuity and skill of Gen Z students – who exposed this scandal online and even presented to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education under the Chairmanship of Digvijaya Singh (@digvijaya_28) today,” wrote the Congress Working Committee member.

Whistleblower student Sarthak Sidhant on Tuesday appeared before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports, chaired by Congress MP Digvijaya Singh.

In a presentation before the committee, the student reportedly flagged tender irregularities he had mentioned in his blogs earlier. “Today’s action, clearly timed for after the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education’s meeting with the CBSE Board, is an attempt to distract and fix accountability on bureaucrats rather than the political leadership. It should be remembered that CBSE Chairperson Rahul Singh had been given a two-year extension by the Cabinet Committee on Appointments as recently as November 2025,” added Ramesh.

“The Mantri Pradhan has been presiding over a monumentally corrupt, inept, and incompetent ecosystem that has played havoc with the lives of lakhs of youth. He needs to resign immediately,” he reiterated.

A massive political slugfest arose over the plight of students taking the examination after irregularities were alleged in the NEET examinations and the digital evaluation system used by the CBSE.

It came to light with the social media post from a student, Vedant Shrivastava, going viral. He wrote that he had applied for a photocopy of his Physics answer sheet on May 19, after receiving what he thought were unexpectedly low marks.

Four days later, he posted on X that the sheet CBSE emailed him did not match his handwriting and clearly belonged to another student. The Board later rectified the mistake of sharing a different answer sheet for evaluation review requested by Vedant with the correct one.

Similar complaints were also reported by several other students, where discrepancies in marks and evaluation transparency raised questions about the integrity of the process.

IANS