Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday criticized the Modi government and the Central Board of Secondary Education, using the term “pickpockets”, for charging money to students to check their answer sheets correctly. He said that when “education is treated not as a service but as a business, mistakes are not corrected but multiplied.”
Sharing a snippet of his conversation with some students on X, Gandhi said students have to pay for CBSE’s mistakes.
“Beware of pickpockets – they are sitting inside CBSE today. If marks come out wrong due to CBSE error, what will you get? Invoice: Digital Scan Copy: $100/topic, return total: $100/sheet, revaluation: $25/question,” he said, originally published in Hindi.
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“The child may have to pay up to $2000 just for checking their answer sheet correctly. Think about it: when 4 lakh children submit such applications, how much does CBSE earn.”
“When the survey is done using a phone, mismarking is a given. The child foots the bill to fix it. The mistake lies with the CBSE. The punishment is with the child. The profits are with the government,” he said.
How is the re-evaluation process done?
One of the students who was speaking to Gandhi in the video explained the process of re-evaluating the answer sheet and the stages at which students have to pay.
He said that if a student feels he deserves more grades, he can apply for re-evaluation. However, the first step is to apply for a scanned digital copy of the answer sheet.
“So you have to pay?” Gandhi asked.
“Yes, $The student answered: 100 for each subject.
The student also explained that after receiving the scanned copy, one has to identify where marks may have been missed and justify why additional marks were awarded but were not awarded by CBSE or the assessor.
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Students must then apply to return the total, he added. Even if they think there is no problem with the total, they still have to pay $100 for this operation.
After that, students must pay $25 per question for re-evaluation. Depending on the number of questions they wish to review, the amount payable increases accordingly.
“If the evaluation is not done properly, why should I donate money for the revaluation?” The student said.
CBSE says the fees are refunded if re-evaluation results in increased marks.
“Fraud,” as Gandhi says
Earlier on Sunday, Gandhiji attacked CBSE And the government for compromising the process of evaluating answer sheets for the twelfth grade exams, claiming that changes in tender specifications led to answer sheets being scanned using mobile phones.
“The CBSE tender in May 2025 required answer sheets to be scanned using automatic scanners, spine-preserving, at a minimum of 300 dpi. The tender re-issued in August quietly removed all of that. The scanners ‘went generic. The resolution came down to 200 dpi,'” Gandhi said.
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He also claimed that the answer sheets were scanned using mobile phones.
“Now we know what that means in practical terms. It has been revealed that COEMPT scanned answer sheets using mobile phones. Blurred copies, missing pages, unscanned books – they are not ‘errors’. They are a predictable consequence of a contract written to suit the seller,” Gandhi alleged, calling it a ‘fraud’.
Why is CBSE under the scanner?
the The controversy largely centers around the students’ claims That the scanned copies of the answer sheets uploaded by CBSE did not match the handwriting, raising concerns about possible mismatch of the answer sheet in the digital assessment system. The OSM system introduced by CBSE for Class 12 examination results from 2026 has also been criticized.
