The Center on Tuesday formed a single-member probe committee, headed by retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer S Radha Chauhan, to examine alleged irregularities linked to the faulty On-Screen Marking (OSM) system. The government has also transferred Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Chairman Rahul Singh and Secretary Himanshu Gupta.
Notably, Prashant Lokhande was appointed as the new Chairman of CBSE on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Rahul Singh has been appointed Additional Secretary in the Agriculture Ministry, according to a government order.
These developments come at a time when the CBSE is facing mounting pressure over reports of technical issues in its post-results portal and alleged discrepancies in the evaluation of answer sheets of Class 12 board exams through the OSM system.
Who is S Radha Chauhan, the retired IAS officer heading the OSM investigation?
- Retired IAS officer S Radha Chauhan has been assigned to investigate issues related to procurement of services for CBSE’s OSM system.
- Its committee was asked to submit its findings to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) within one month, the memorandum said.
- Chouhan is currently the Chairman of the Capacity Building Committee (CBC), which works to standardize civil service training and capacity building initiatives across the country.
- She belongs to the 1988 batch of Uttar Pradesh cadre and retired from the post of Secretary, Personnel and Training Department in 2025, according to reports.
- She graduated from the Faculty of Law by training, and has worked in sectors including women’s education, health, child development, rural development, urban development, and skills development.
- Over the years, she has held various administrative positions, including Commissioner of Ghaziabad, CEO of Noida Authority, Deputy CEO of Greater Noida, Additional Commissioner and District Magistrate of Bulandshahr, Pilibhit, Agra and Meerut, India’s News18 said in a report.
- She also reportedly worked as Joint Secretary in the School Education and Literacy Department of the Ministry of Human Resource Development between 2011 and 2015. She later served as President and CEO of the National e-Governance Division (NeGD).
Controversy over CBSE’s OSM system
The decision comes after a backlash from parents and teachers, along with a series of HT reports citing concerns about the implementation of a new system designed to assess nearly 10 million answer texts.
As HT reported earlier, the CBSE Board has recommended pilot projects across regional offices in June 2025 before the system is introduced nationwide. However, the Council did not implement this recommendation.
HT also reported that an internal monitoring report prepared after the trial run of the OSM system in five schools in Delhi in January 2026 identified at least 36 technical, operational and assessment-related issues.
Another report said that the CBSE issued three tenders between February 2025 and August 2025 and relaxed some rules related to scanning and other procedures while selecting a company to implement the OSM system in 2026.
