Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday accused the government and the key national school board examination authority of compromising the evaluation process for the Class 12 exam.
The allegations come amid growing scrutiny of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) over reports of technical glitches and irregularities in evaluated answer sheets.
Grade 12 examinations are taken at the end of secondary education, as a pathway to university, global equivalents include the High School Diploma in the US and A-levels in the UK.
What did Gandhi say about class 12th evaluation?
Gandhi said the May 2025 tender required high-resolution robotic scanning of answer sheets, but the specifications were later relaxed, allowing contractor COEMPT to reportedly use mobile phones for scanning.
Gandhi said, “This is fraud.” He claimed that students got wrong marking due to blurry scans and missing pages.
The opposition leader wrote, “Modi ji’s silence is no longer indifference. It is collusion.”
He also criticized the fees charged for revaluation and recalculation and said that students are being forced to pay to correct errors caused by the system.
“The fault is of CBSE. The punishment is of the child. The earning is of the government,” he said in a post on X.
CBSE and the government have not responded publicly to the allegations. However, in a post on Twitter, CBSE said that cyber security professionals from “various organs of the government” are looking into the matter.