In a major crackdown following widespread outrage over Class 12 board exam results, the Central government on Tuesday transferred top officials of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and launched a high-level inquiry into the board’s newly introduced digital evaluation system.
CBSE Chairman Rahul Singh and Secretary Himanshu Gupta have been transferred out of their roles with immediate effect, officials confirmed.
The administrative shake-up came on the same day the Parliamentary Committee for Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports—chaired by Congress MP Digvijaya Singh—summoned top officials from both the CBSE and the Ministry of School Education to answer for the unfolding crisis.
The CBSE has faced intense scrutiny since the release of the Class 12 results, with students and parents alleging massive discrepancies in how answer scripts were evaluated.
As anxious students rushed to apply for answer sheet verifications, the board’s post-results portal crashed under the sheer volume of traffic. Furthermore, students who successfully downloaded scanned copies of their answer books reported severe technical glitches, including blurred or entirely missing pages. Then fully answered questions left completely unmarked and there was identity mix-up with several students reportedly received scanned answer books belonging to other candidates.
In response to the technical and administrative failure, the Centre has formed a one-member inquiry committee to investigate the procurement of services for the flawed OSM system. The Committee will be headed by S. Radha Chauhan (Chairperson, Capacity Building Commission). The committee has been mandated to submit its findings to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) within one month.
Meanwhile, technical experts from the IITs and IIMs have been urgently roped in to resolve ongoing system glitches, which initially spiked when scores of students faced online payment failures while trying to request their answer sheets.
