A 17-year-old student from Jharkhand has ignited a major political and institutional controversy with a detailed forensic analysis of the Central Board of Secondary Education's (CBSE) 'On-Screen Marking' (OSM) tender. The student's blog has intensified demands for a complete re-evaluation of Class XII board exam answer sheets and an independent audit of the board's digital evaluation system.
Background of the Controversy
The controversy comes amid ongoing complaints from students and parents regarding answer-sheet mix-ups, blurred scans, and alleged security lapses. Opposition parties, particularly the Congress, have continuously attacked the government over the 'OSM-Coempt' issue. Class XII student Sarthak Sidhant's blog, titled 'How CBSE rewrote rules to favour Coempt EduTeck', has gone viral after opposition leaders amplified his allegations. Sidhant claims that the board repeatedly altered tender conditions in ways that allegedly benefited Hyderabad-based Coempt EduTeck, the company awarded the OSM contract.
CBSE has strongly rejected the allegations related to its tender process, with board officials maintaining that the contract was awarded as per government procedures. Coempt has also denied any wrongdoing.
Student's Analysis and Claims
Sidhant's analysis claims that CBSE 'rewrote its own rulebook' to favour Coempt. In his blog, he wrote, 'This is a story of how a massive public institution deliberately played with students' futures by rewriting its own rulebook.' He claimed to have reviewed hundreds of tender documents and compared multiple versions of the request-for-proposal (RFP) documents issued by CBSE. Sidhant said he spent days comparing CBSE's tender documents.
The blog details changes across three RFP rounds. For example, he claimed that in the new RFP, certain clauses were completely removed. 'For the board, a track record of poor performance didn't matter anymore,' he said, as he flagged edits to rules related to blacklisting. The older RFP disqualified any vendor 'blacklisted earlier', whereas the new version mentions only 'currently blacklisted', masking Coempt's past as Globarena, he said. Sidhant noted that Coempt had barely cleared the Rs 50-crore turnover bar of the tender. The blog listed about 15 discrepancies in the new RFP, including relaxed CMMI and infrastructure criteria, suggesting the rules were tailored to Coempt's profile.
Wider Implications and Demands
The controversy has rapidly moved beyond technical glitches in the re-evaluation process and triggered wider concerns over transparency in the board's digital transition. Student groups and several parents have now begun demanding complete rechecking of all digitally evaluated answer sheets, arguing that isolated verifications may not be sufficient if systemic flaws existed in scanning or evaluation workflows.
CBSE has strongly rejected the allegations, stating the tender process followed all prescribed government procurement norms and calling the claims 'erroneous, misleading and not based on facts'. Board officials maintained that the contract was awarded under standard quality-and-cost based selection procedures and that modifications in tender conditions were introduced to improve operational efficiency and participation. Coempt EduTeck has also denied wrongdoing.
