It was, by all accounts, a great day for the 17-year-old. Sarthak Sidhant started it as a Class XII student and blogger from Ranchi, Jharkhand, and came to attention after an investigation into the board that conducted his exams. By Tuesday night, he had been deposed before a parliamentary committee, witnessed the government’s action against top CBI officers, and received solidarity from the opposition leader.
That last bit came when Congressman Rahul Gandhi met Sarthak Sidhant and his family members, and posted on X: “Sarthak, stand firm on your principles (“sidhant”),” tagging him #TenderInvestigator — a reference to the teen’s network through the tender documents.
This was the second test supported by Gandhi in three days, after meeting Vedant Shrivastava, to whom the CBSE had sent the wrong answer sheet.
Meeting with the standing committee and then moving
Hours ago, the government took action on the CBSE scandal. Chairman Rahul Singh and Secretary Himanshu Gupta have been transferred amid increasing scrutiny into the procurement of the board’s on-screen marking (OSM) system. Prashant Lokhande has been appointed as the new Chairman.
Separately, the government has constituted a single-member committee comprising Capacity Building Committee Chairman S Radha Chauhan to probe the OSM procurement. This is what Siddhant also researched.
The conference witnessed a clear sequence of events today, and a rapprochement with young people, especially Generation Z.
Anshul Trivedi, coordinator of the party’s student wing at NSUI, pointed out that after Sarthak Siddhant met the Parliamentary Standing Committee headed by Congress MP Digvijaya Singh in the morning; By evening, the Modi government was “forced to act.” Trivedi added a handshake emoji between the “Power of Generation Z” and the Indian National Congress or Indian National Congress.
“Justice requires the dismissal of Mantri Pradhan,” the party’s communications chief Jairam Ramesh said, referring to Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
Congress leader Mallikarjun Karg went further, saying, “The transfer of CBSE chairman and secretary is just an eyewash. Modi ji should sack Dharmendra Pradhan immediately. Nothing less would provide a sense of justice to 18.5 lakh CBSE students… The ‘big achievement’ is not this whitewash – the real news is Pradhan continuing despite all this.”
At the meeting held in the early afternoon at the Parliament House annex, Sarthak Siddhant presented a seven-page set of findings to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education. Reports stated that his presentation was made in the presence of the officers, who were isolated hours later.
Siddhant claimed in his blog late last month that the CBSE had rewritten its tender rules in favor of Coempt EduTeck, the company that runs OSM. “There were at least 15 discrepancies according to my blog,” he told the media. He stressed that he is not against the system: “I think OSM is a good change, but there has to be a large-scale rollout first and good test pilots.”
HT reported that the OSM contract went to Coempt on December 5, just 74 days before tests began on February 17.
The Central Bank of Securities denied any wrongdoing, as did the company, with the board saying the bid followed general financial rules and went to the lowest bidder.
Teenagers take up issues
Sidhant is one of three teenagers leading the CBSE audit, amid a widespread environment of concern over exam systems.
Other than him, there is Vedant, whose viral post forced CBSE to admit a scanning error, and 19-year-old Nisarja Adhikari, an ethical hacker who reported a vulnerability in the OSM portal, whose claims the board initially refuted and then said had been “contained”.
The three cases have since been picked up by the Kokroch Janta Party, an online movement seeking Pradhan’s resignation and planning a Jantar Mantar protest on June 6. The movement takes its name from a remark made by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, who likened some unemployed youth to “cockroaches” — a slur that CJP founder Abhijit Debaki reclaimed with the phrase “What if all the cockroaches got together?” mail.
On Tuesday, the CJP attracted a prominent supporter of climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, who said he would join the June 6 protest if the government takes no action on the exam disputes by June 5.
Wangchuk was released in March after six months in NSA detention over protests against the creation of Ladakh statehood. The Center had told the Supreme Court that it had tried to incite Generation Z agitation “as happened in Nepal and Bangladesh”.
“If not now, then when? And if not us, then who?” he said on Tuesday. He urged Prime Minister Modi to act.
The opposition has linked the CBSE class with a wide range of failures. This includes the canceled NEET-UG 2026 exam headed for re-test on June 21 after paper leak; SSC-GD Constable exam, which led to chaos in some centers of UP and Bihar; and CUET-UG, delayed at several centers on May 30.
Pradhan said he took “full responsibility” and promised not to commit any further lapses.
