SC expresses concern over CBSE OSM evaluation system, seeks status report

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday expressed concern over the difficulties being faced by students due to the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) On-Screen Marking (OSM) system for evaluation of Class 12 board examination answer sheets.

A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking supervision and regulation of the CBSE’s digital evaluation mechanism and directions for remedial measures in cases of alleged irregularities.

Observing that students had been facing persistent problems under the newly introduced digital evaluation mechanism, the CJI-led Bench asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to assist the top court in resolving the issue.

The apex court said the Union government should not treat the proceedings as adversarial and stressed that it was looking for a permanent solution to the concerns raised over the evaluation process.

Appearing for the Centre, SG Mehta submitted that while most of the individual marksheet-related grievances referred to in the petition had been resolved, the government was taking the broader concerns regarding the evaluation system seriously. He informed the bench that a one-member commission headed by S. Radha Chauhan had been constituted to review the OSM mechanism and recommend reforms.

“We are not taking this adversely,” SG Mehta told the top court, adding that the panel was already examining the grievances raised by students and other stakeholders.

Taking note of the submission, the Supreme Court directed the Solicitor General to place a status report on record detailing the steps taken by the government and the CBSE to address the issues.

The matter has been posted for further hearing next week on July 24.

According to the petition filed by Rakesh Binjola, the OSM system, introduced by CBSE for the first time through circulars issued in February this year, suffered from large-scale irregularities in the evaluation of answer sheets.

The plea alleged that due to scanning errors and portal glitches, the digital evaluation process resulted in arbitrary assessment and, in some cases, non-evaluation of answers, violating students’ rights under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.

It further claimed that teachers were not provided adequate formal training before implementation of the OSM system and that scanned answer sheets suffered from defects such as missing pages, illegible scans and incomplete evaluation.

The petitioner also alleged that the irregularities had adversely affected a large number of students in India and abroad and pointed to a decline in the overall Class 12 pass percentage to 85.2 per cent this year, seeking re-evaluation, rechecking and an independent inquiry into the evaluation process.

Earlier, the Delhi High Court had also agreed to examine concerns surrounding the CBSE’s newly introduced OSM system.

On June 8, a Bench of Justices Neena Bansal Krishna and Madhu Jain issued notice to the Centre and CBSE on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), which questioned the fairness, transparency and reliability of the digital evaluation mechanism.

The PIL alleged that thousands of students across the country faced issues such as blurred scans, missing pages, mismatched answer sheets, incomplete uploads and unexpectedly low marks after the declaration of the Class 12 results. It also sought directions to reopen the verification portal, permit manual rechecking and physical verification of disputed answer sheets, order an independent inquiry into the alleged irregularities and frame safeguards for future digital evaluation systems.

IANS