‘If you don’t use the bus, you miss it’: Supreme Court refuses reopening CBSE Class 12 re-evaluation portal

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to direct the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to reopen its portal for re-evaluation and verification of Class 12 answer sheets for students who raised concerns over the On-Screen Marking (OSM) system. The court said the window had been made available to all candidates for a specified period and reopening it could lead to fresh claims.

The hearing came amid continued scrutiny of CBSE's examination and evaluation processes. Union Education Minister Pralhad Joshi on Monday held a meeting with senior officials of the Department of School Education and Literacy to review CBSE's academic, examination and administrative processes. The meeting focused on improving efficiency, transparency and support for students and teachers. The CBSE's OSM system faced continued backlash this year following complaints about its implementation and evaluation of scanned answer sheets. Former CBSE chairman Rahul Singh and secretary Himanshu Gupta were transferred in June amid scrutiny over the procurement and rollout of the system.

A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana heard the plea seeking reopening of the re-evaluation-related window. The Chief Justice questioned the need to reopen the window after it had already been made available to all candidates for a fixed period. “Why should we direct them to open this window again for you? If you don't use the bus, you miss the bus. The window was open for everyone for a specified period,” he said.

The petitioner's counsel said the website had crashed and some students were unable to apply for on-screen verification, and sought an additional week for applications. The court, however, declined to issue such a direction.

The CBSE told the court that 1.68 lakh students had successfully applied during the notified window. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the board, also informed the court that the Delhi High Court had already dismissed a similar challenge. The Supreme Court was hearing a plea that questioned the manner in which CBSE introduced OSM for evaluation of Class 12 answer sheets.

Under OSM, physical answer sheets are scanned and made available digitally to evaluators, who assess them on computers instead of checking the physical copies. The petition alleged that the transition had resulted in issues such as some pages not being scanned, poor-quality or illegible scans, and answers or pages allegedly not being evaluated.