India witnessed two major examination-related controversies in the summer of 2026—NEET and CBSE’s On-Screen Marking (OSM). Both predominantly affected Class XII students. In both cases, the then Union Education Minister assured the nation that no student would suffer injustice. However, the national response to the two controversies differed sharply.

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Alleged irregularities in NEET, involving admissions to about 1.4 lakh medical seats, rightly led to Re-NEET 2026, nationwide debate, judicial scrutiny, organisational restructuring, and policy reforms on an unprecedented scale. In contrast, the unresolved CBSE-OSM controversy, which affected nearly 18 lakh Class XII students, received comparatively little public attention despite its much wider academic impact.

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Around 98 lakh answer scripts had already been digitised under OSM. Yet only about four lakh students could access nearly 11 lakh evaluated scripts, leaving 14 lakh students without a meaningful opportunity to verify their evaluation or seek correction of genuine errors. Complaints about portal glitches, payment failures, blurred scans, missing pages, mismatches in answer sheets, and other procedural deficiencies remained largely unaddressed. Even the limited scrutiny that followed revealed substantial mark revisions after re-evaluation, raising serious questions about the robustness of the review process.

The issue eventually reached the Supreme Court through a Public Interest Litigation (PIL). Referring to the “frustration of young children” and the “creeping problems” in the OSM process, the Court highlighted concerns that went beyond individual grievances to the integrity of the evaluation system itself.

The central issue is no longer whether mistakes occurred. It is whether every student was given an equal opportunity to verify the evaluation, identify genuine errors, and have them corrected. This transparency gap can still be bridged through a simple, practical, and time-bound reform.

The limited number of students who reached the re-evaluation stage reflected structural flaws in the OSM review process. Unlike the earlier pen-and-paper system, where answer scripts had to be retrieved and digitised on request, every OSM answer script had already been digitised during evaluation. In principle, every student could therefore have been given immediate access to an authenticated digital copy of the evaluated answer script.

Instead, the OSM review process required students to apply, pay the prescribed fee, and rely on an online portal to access records that were already in digital form. They also had to verify the completeness and authenticity of their answer scripts before seeking re-evaluation. However, portal glitches, payment failures, delayed access, and overlapping verification and re-evaluation timelines left little time to detect and report deficiencies before the review window closed.

As a result, access to re-evaluation depended more on overcoming procedural and technical barriers than on the merit of a student’s grievance. While a small fraction of students completed the process, the overwhelming majority never had the opportunity to determine whether genuine evaluation errors had affected their results. In a digital evaluation system, transparency should begin with universal access to evaluated answer scripts, not with procedural hurdles that deny students an equal opportunity to seek justice.

The answer scripts that underwent independent scrutiny revealed serious concerns, including blurred scans, missing pages, mismatches in answer sheets, and substantial mark revisions after re-evaluation. In one widely reported case, a student’s History marks increased from 74 to 97, elevating the student to the position of a CBSE topper. Such outcomes demonstrate that the review process could correct significant evaluation errors—but only for those who managed to access it. If serious deficiencies emerged from this limited scrutiny, it is reasonable to ask what a universal review might have revealed, leaving open the possibility of a much larger Pandora’s Box.

The unresolved issue is the absence of equal opportunity. Students who could not access their evaluated answer scripts were denied the chance to verify whether similar errors had affected their own results. In a digital evaluation system, transparency cannot remain selective. Unless every student has a fair opportunity to verify the accuracy of the evaluation, public confidence in the OSM system will remain incomplete.

Since every answer script already exists in digital form, CBSE can still restore transparency through a simple seven-day framework. On the first day, authenticated digital copies of evaluated answer scripts should be made available to all students. The next three days should be devoted to verifying the completeness and authenticity of the scripts, including identifying blurred scans, missing pages, omitted supplementary sheets, and mismatches in the answer sheets. After rectifying any verified deficiencies, the remaining four days should be reserved exclusively for re-evaluation of genuine grievances.

At the end of the process, CBSE should publish anonymised statistics on verification requests, deficiencies detected, re-evaluations conducted, and mark revisions made. This framework requires no new technology or major expenditure. It simply ensures that every student has an equal opportunity to verify the fairness of evaluation, thereby strengthening transparency, accountability, and public confidence in the OSM system.

The OSM controversy is no longer merely a technical issue; it is a question of governance and accountability. Responsibility rests with the CBSE, which was expected to design, monitor, and continuously improve the evaluation process, as well as with the Ministry of Education for effective oversight. The inability to address systemic deficiencies and restore students’ confidence points to shortcomings in institutional governance.

The Central Information Commission (CIC), exercising its powers under Section 25(5) of the RTI Act, had already advised CBSE to frame comprehensive SOPs, describing them as “the dire need of today’s scenario.” Yet these SOPs remain unpublished. The priority now is to implement a transparent and robust framework that ensures every student has an equal opportunity to verify the fairness and accuracy of the evaluation.

The new Union Education Minister now has an opportunity to bridge the transparency gap in the OSM system. The proposed Seven-Day Transparency Framework offers a practical, low-cost roadmap to ensure universal access to evaluated answer scripts, timely verification, and transparent grievance redressal.

The credibility of the OSM system will ultimately be judged by its ability to deliver transparency, fairness, and equal opportunity to every student. If these reforms are implemented with urgency, the Supreme Court’s “frustrated young minds” can become millions of smiling faces, confident that their performance has been evaluated fairly, transparently, and justly.

(Prof. Rajeev Kumar is a former Computer Science Professor at IIT Kharagpur, IIT Kanpur, BITS Pilani, and JNU, and a former scientist at DRDO and DST.)