SC closes plea on CBSE OSM glitches

The Supreme Court on Tuesday closed a petition challenging glitches in the On Screen Marking (OSM) evaluation method adopted in the Class XII marking scheme by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) observing that permitting revaluation at this stage will open a “Pandora’s Box”.

Dismissing a petition filed by lawyer Rakesh Binjola challenging the glitches that led to discrepancies in results of lakhs of students, a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant said, “Why should we direct the CBSE to open the window for you. This will open a Pandora’s Box.”

Last week, the court had asked the Centre and CBSE to file a response on having a permanent mechanism to deal with the OSM glitches seeking a response on whether the earlier window period of one week provided to students seeking revaluation could be reopened.

CBSE, represented by solicitor general Tushar Mehta said it is in the process of filing a response. However, Mehta reiterated that the admission process to colleges is over and reopening the window at this belated stage will lead to more problems. He informed the court that when the revaluation window was provided, 168,000 students had applied and claimed relief. He pointed out that the petitioner had missed the bus and cannot now seek any relief.

The bench, also comprising justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana told the petitioner, “These are hard cases. But we cannot upset the entire system. It is your bad luck. What can we do?”

The petitioner’s lawyer, advocate Lakshmikant Shukla told the court that this is not a relief limited to the petitioner alone as lakhs of students could not avail of the window period due to various reasons. “During the window period, the system was crashing. There are more students than 1.68 lakh as claimed by the CBSE,” Shukla said.

The bench sought proof that the system had crashed. Mehta pointed out to the court that this issue was investigated by the Delhi high court which dismissed a petition on June 12. Three days later, the present petition was filed in the top court.

The bench said, “If you miss the bus, you miss the bus. Nothing can be done,” adding that it is “ satisfied that a direction to reopen the window for revaluation cannot be granted when the result of various admission tests is already over.”

The petition sought a regulatory framework for marking CBSE board examinations through the OSM evaluation system and the constitution of a high-powered committee to supervise its implementation. It also sought relaxation of the criteria for minimum qualifying marks for students who have already secured provisional admissions or cleared entrance examinations, stating that alleged flaws in the evaluation process adversely affected their board scores.

The Union government formed a one-member committee headed by retired IAS officer S Radha Chauhan to look into the glitches, transferred then CBSE chairperson Rahul Singh, replacing him with Prashant Lokhande, and repatriated CBSE secretary Himanshu Gupta to his parent cadre.

The discrepancies in the digital evaluation of Class XII answer scripts was highlighted in a series of reports in HT which also reported that the contract for the OSM system was awarded to Coempt Edu Teck just 74 days before the Class XII board examinations, after multiple tender modifications during the procurement process.