Vedant’s 2-Mark Re-Evaluation vs the Ministry’s 11 in CBSE OSM

CBSE Class 12 student Vedant Srivastava posted a video on X on Sunday saying his re-evaluation result added just two marks, with none of the increase coming from the disputed Physics paper at the centre of a national row over the Board’s new On-Screen Marking (OSM) system. Within hours, the Ministry of Education issued a clarification stating the total increase was actually 11, with a nine-mark rise in Physics theory alone, and called Vedant’s claim “factually incorrect” and a “blatant lie.”

The two numbers, from the student and from the government, are now both in the public record, and both speak to the same Physics paper, the same re-evaluation, and the same result sheet. The dispute is the latest flashpoint in a controversy that has followed OSM, CBSE’s first digital evaluation system for Class 12, since the Board announced its rollout earlier this year, and the story behind both numbers starts with a single Physics answer sheet that was never Vedant’s.

Vedant’s 2-Mark Re-Evaluation vs the Ministry’s 11

In a Vedant’s June 28 re-evaluation video, Vedant Srivastava said he had applied for re-evaluation of 11 questions across subjects. The only increases, he said, were one mark each in Mathematics and Computer Science. “In the case of the answer sheet exchange, there isn’t a single mark increased,” he posted. “The marks that have increased are in maths where one mark has increased and one in computer science,” he posted.

The Ministry of Education disagreed in a clarification released the same day. According to the Ministry, Vedant’s Physics theory marks rose from 35 to 44 after re-evaluation, a nine-mark increase, while his Mathematics marks went from 46 to 47 and Computer Science from 61 to 62, adding one each. The total across the three subjects, the Ministry said, was 11 marks. The Ministry termed Vedant’s claim “factually incorrect” and a “blatant lie.”

Subject by subject, the two accounts diverge sharply on Physics and coincide on Mathematics and Computer Science. The Ministry reports a nine-mark increase in Physics theory, taking the score from 35 to 44, while Vedant reports zero change in that paper.

The Indian Express reported Vedant’s video on June 28, and the Ministry’s rebuttal was published by India Today the same evening.

How a Single Answer Sheet Spiraled Into a National Scandal

Vedant’s first complaint surfaced on May 23, 2026, when he posted on X that the Physics answer sheet he had received through CBSE’s post-result services was not his own. “I am a CBSE Class 12 student,” he wrote, “and I am shattered because the Physics answer sheet uploaded by CBSE is not mine.” His post drew millions of views and a wave of similar complaints from other students who alleged they had received answer scripts belonging to different candidates.

On May 25, CBSE acknowledged the error on its verified X account and emailed Vedant his actual Physics answer book. The correction raised his Physics score from 65 to 74. After reviewing the new answer sheet, Vedant shared images of it online, and several users observed what appeared to be conventional red-ink annotations, the kind used in manual evaluation, rather than markings associated with digital On-Screen Marking. The case grew into a political flashpoint; Congress leader Rahul Gandhi cited Vedant on X and demanded the education minister’s resignation. Federal Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan acknowledged “some discrepancies” had come to light and said he took responsibility for finding a solution.

1. February 9, 2026: CBSE circular announces On-Screen Marking for Class 12 answer scripts.
2. February 17, 2026: First Class 12 board exam held; teachers informed of OSM only about ten days earlier, per The Hindu.
3. May 19, 2026: CBSE portal for scanned answer-book copies goes live and crashes under traffic.
4. May 23, 2026: Vedant Srivastava posts on X that his Physics answer sheet “is not mine.”
5. May 25, 2026: CBSE acknowledges the mix-up on its verified X account and emails Vedant his actual answer book.
6. June 2, 2026: Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education summons CBSE and Ministry officials for an OSM review.
7. June 21, 2026: CBSE has released revised results for over 87% of re-evaluation applicants, per Moneycontrol.
8. June 28, 2026: Vedant posts re-evaluation result, claiming a 2-mark increase.
9. June 28, 2026 (evening): Ministry of Education says the total increase was 11 marks and terms Vedant’s claim a “blatant lie.”

The 1.6 Lakh Students Behind Vedant’s Viral Post

The re-evaluation queue this year is far larger than one student. Moneycontrol reports that approximately 1.6 lakh students applied for verification and re-evaluation across more than 4 lakh answer books, with an estimated 13% of applicants, or nearly 20,000 students, still awaiting their updated marksheets as of late June and university admissions deadlines approaching.

The Board said on June 28 that it had declared re-evaluation and verification results for over 99.7% of applications. Earlier, the Board had released results for over 87% of applicants, and the latest 12% tranche came after a wait of nearly a week. The re-evaluation fee is Rs 25 per question, a rate Moneycontrol reports the Board introduced during the dispute. The Board also said it had extended application deadlines, revised fee structures, and engaged experts from the Indian Institutes of Technology at Madras and Kanpur to stabilise the verification portal.

Students who received their answer scripts during the post-result window described blurred scans, missing pages, and marks that did not match the visible annotations. Many posted screenshots online, and the pattern repeated across hundreds of complaints. Several candidates who later received their verified or re-evaluated answer books continue to allege that discrepancies remain despite CBSE’s scrutiny.

By the numbers, the OSM rollout in its first year is hard to miss. The scale of the re-evaluation queue tells the story of how many students found reasons to question the process.

• 17 lakh: students who sat the 2026 CBSE Class 12 exams, per The Hindu.
• 98.6 lakh: answer sheets evaluated with OSM this cycle, per CBSE via NDTV.
• 1.6 lakh: students who applied for verification and re-evaluation, per Moneycontrol.
• 4 lakh+: answer books in the re-evaluation queue, per Moneycontrol.
• 99.7%: applications for which CBSE has declared re-evaluation or verification results, per CBSE via India Today.

A Digital System That Skipped Its Own Pilots

CBSE’s On-Screen Marking system is, in principle, a digital version of the manual evaluation it replaced. Hand-written answer books are scanned, anonymised, and uploaded to a portal where teachers mark them on screen under video surveillance; a software then calculates totals. CBSE listed the benefits in a February 9, 2026 circular: fewer totalling errors, reduced manual intervention, faster evaluation, and less need for post-result verification. The Hindu’s explainer on the OSM system reports that none of those benefits materialised in this cycle.

The Board had piloted OSM on a smaller scale in 2013-14, but inadequate digital infrastructure and limited teacher training stalled that experiment. In June 2025, members of CBSE’s governing body suggested that OSM “may be implemented in all subjects only after completion of pilot projects in some subjects across various regional offices of the board,” per The Hindu. CBSE went ahead with a full-scale rollout in 2026 anyway, with the first Class 12 exam on February 17 and teachers informed of the new system only about ten days earlier. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth, and Sports has summoned senior officials from the Union Education Ministry and CBSE Chairman Rahul Singh for a meeting on June 2 to review the use of OSM. The Board’s pass percentage has dipped to 85.29% in 2026 from 88.39% in 2025, per The Hindu.

Coempt EduTeck and the Questions Around the OSM Vendor

The OSM portal is built and operated by Coempt EduTeck Pvt Ltd, a Hyderabad-based firm previously known as Globarena Technology Pvt Ltd. Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has alleged corruption in CBSE’s selection of the vendor and demanded a judicial inquiry. CBSE has said Coempt was chosen “in accordance with the procurement policy” of the government. A 19-year-old cybersecurity hobbyist, Nisarga Adhikary, separately told the BBC he cracked the master password for the OSM portal and gained access to evaluators’ accounts; CBSE denied any security breach, calling the URL he tested a “testing environment” with sample data.

Adhikary told the BBC he flagged the vulnerabilities to India’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) in a series of emails and received an acknowledgement reference. The full sequence of disclosure, denial, and the typo in CBSE’s first statement is laid out in a the technical breakdown of Adhikary’s five OSM-portal findings. CBSE’s first denial, per the BBC, said the URL Adhikary tested was a “testing environment” with sample data, drawing its own scrutiny. Adhikary, per the BBC, claims he was able to view scanned answer sheets and verify the personal details of one evaluator whose account he accessed. The dispute over who controlled the relevant subdomain, and whether the production portal was ever distinct from the test environment, remains open.

Relieved that the results are finally out.

Vedant Srivastava, a CBSE Class 12 student whose Physics answer book was exchanged with another candidate’s, posted the line in a video on X on June 28, 2026, hours before the Ministry of Education issued its counter-statement. The Ministry said the total mark increase was 11, with a nine-mark rise in Physics theory, and called Vedant’s version of the result “factually incorrect.” Vedant’s individual case is largely closed. The dispute over which figure is correct, two marks or eleven, and the wider questions about how the OSM system was designed, piloted, and audited, are not.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many students sat the 2026 CBSE Class 12 exams?

About 17 lakh students sat the 2026 CBSE Class 12 board exams, per The Hindu, making it one of the largest school-leaving examinations in India. The same exams generated 98.6 lakh answer sheets, all of which CBSE says were evaluated on the OSM digital platform this cycle.

How many students applied for CBSE re-evaluation this year?

Approximately 1.6 lakh students applied for verification and re-evaluation across more than 4 lakh answer books, per Moneycontrol. CBSE had released revised results for over 87% of those applicants as of June 21, and for over 99.7% of all applications as of June 28, per CBSE statements reported by India Today.

How much does CBSE re-evaluation cost?

The re-evaluation fee is Rs 25 per question, per Moneycontrol. The reduced rate was introduced during the OSM dispute, after CBSE revised its earlier fee structure several times to address confusion among parents and students about the post-result services.

What is the status of the Parliamentary review of OSM?

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth, and Sports has summoned senior officials from the Union Education Ministry and CBSE Chairman Rahul Singh for a meeting on June 2 to review the use of OSM and the problems students have faced, per The Hindu and ET Education.

Who is Coempt EduTeck, and what are the controversies around the vendor?

Coempt EduTeck Pvt Ltd, a Hyderabad-based firm previously known as Globarena Technology Pvt Ltd, built and operates the OSM portal used for CBSE’s 2026 Class 12 evaluation. Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has alleged corruption in the selection of the vendor and demanded a judicial inquiry. Class 12 student Sarthak Sidhant separately appeared before a Parliamentary panel with alleged tender irregularities against the company, per NDTV. CBSE has said Coempt was chosen in accordance with the procurement policy of the government.