Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday demanded a judicial probe and a special probe into the alleged “massive manipulation” of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) examination results, questioning why Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not spoken out on the issue.
In a video message on He said CBSE skipped background checks, bypassed rules to award the contract to the company and alleged a nexus between the company’s management and the government.
CBSE immediately denied the allegations.
“The CBSE rejects the allegations regarding award of contract to Coempt Edu Teck, Hyderabad. It is false, misleading and not based on facts,” the board said in a statement.
Read also | ‘There is no accountability’, says Rahul Gandhi on PM Modi’s silence amid CBSE Class 12 results failure
“The CBSE has strictly followed the protocols of Public Finance Rules in awarding the contract to the agency. CBSE floated the RFP for digital evaluation of answer books for 2026 board examinations on the Central Public Procurement Portal on 28.08.2025 and awarded the contract to the qualified bidder,” the Board added, responding to the Congress leader’s statement on X.
HT reached out to top officials of Coempt Edu Teck to get their comments on the controversy surrounding email and text messaging. But there was no response.
Gandhi’s attacks on the government and CBSE come amid a raging controversy over CBSE’s use of the new on-screen marking system (OSM) for Class 12 board exams this year. The system is now at the center of the storm, with assessors saying OSM introduced a completely bizarre workflow, produced poor scans of answer scripts and incorrectly scored marks, while parents claimed many scripts were mixed up.
As HT reported, the CBSE also ignored the views of its board members, who called for pilot projects across regional offices before rolling out the OSM system this year. Instead, the board conducted a two-day training for just 100 teachers in five schools in Delhi in January.
Read also | Did 19 year old Nisarga Adhikary hack CBSE OSM portal? Claims and counterclaims explained
In a sharp attack against the government, Gandhi claimed that Coempt Edu Teck, which implemented OSM, was awarded the contract despite its incomplete track record.
“COEMPT, which was entrusted with this responsibility, had already carried out the same scam in Telangana in 2019 and 2023 under the name Globarena. The same OSM-based blunders were responsible for the death of 23 young Indian students by suicide. This was public information. However, CBSE chose the same company. It took us 30 seconds to find out that this company was called by another name earlier. I am pretty sure that CBSE and the Government of India were aware of this.” “The background of this company,” Gandhi said.
“The name has changed – but the intent is the same, the nature is the same. Everyone knows the history, and yet the contract was awarded. The future of 1.85 million children was handed over to such a company, and no one paid attention to it. This is not a mistake – it is a deliberate conspiracy. There has been massive manipulation of CBSE exam results, leaving millions of children across the country and their parents in shock. And Mr Modi? As always – no answers, no accountability, no shame,” Gandhi said.
An education department official reiterated CBSE’s rebuttal. “The contract was awarded to Quimpet Edu Tech after due process and in line with government rules and guidelines. We have followed all procedures. The allegations made by Rahul Gandhi are false,” he said.
At a press conference on May 17, CBSE officials acknowledged that the new system had caused initial technical glitches, including login issues, system overload, and scanning deficiencies.
Of the 9,866,622 answer books assessed this year, 68,018 had to be re-scanned due to poor image quality, and 13,583 were manually scanned after repeated scanning failed to produce legible copies.
The amount of student interest is reflected in the post-result numbers.
As of May 26, CBSE has received 404,319 applications for scanned copies of 1,131,961 Class 12 answer books – a jump of over 208% in applications and 301% in answer book requests compared to last year. CBSE attributed this rise to the sharp cut in fees announced on May 17, which brought down the cost of the scanned copy of $700 l $100 per topic.
The demand for an inquiry gained momentum after the Odisha Parents Federation (OPF) wrote to the state’s chief secretary, Anu Garg, seeking a probe into the company.
OPF president Basudeb Bhatta claimed that the company, formerly known as Globarena Technology Pvt Ltd, has a “terrible track record” and pointed to the 2019 Telangana intermediate exams crisis, in which the company was linked to massive discrepancies in results.
During that crisis, nearly 350,000 students failed after widespread technical errors awarded single-digit grades to top students, leading to massive protests and tragic student suicides.
