The Central Board of Secondary Education is facing renewed questions over its digital evaluation process after Class XII students alleged that scanned answer sheets uploaded by the board did not match their handwriting or responses. The complaints, initially linked to portal errors and blurred copies, have now raised concerns over the reliability of CBSE’s OnScreen Marking system.
Student Claims Physics Copy Was Not His Own
The controversy gained attention after Class XII student Vedant Shrivastava alleged on social media that the Physics answer sheet uploaded under his roll number was not the paper he had written during the examination. He claimed the handwriting, writing style, spacing, presentation and sentence flow in the uploaded copy were completely different from his own.
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According to the student, his family members and teachers noticed the mismatch after comparing the Physics scanned copy with his English and Computer Science answer sheets. He alleged that the error affected his PCM aggregate and prevented him from crossing the 75 percent eligibility benchmark required for admission to several professional courses and institutions.
Vedant urged CBSE to verify the original physical answer sheet and examine whether the alleged mismatch occurred during scanning, uploading or digitisation. His claims quickly drew attention online, with several users raising questions about the checks followed before scanned copies are linked to student roll numbers.
More Students Raise Similar Concerns
The issue widened after other students also came forward with similar allegations. One student reportedly claimed that the scanned Chemistry answer sheet uploaded by CBSE did not match their handwriting or actual responses. Some students shared comparisons of answer sheets from different subjects to highlight the alleged differences.
The controversy also saw a lawyer publicly state online that he was initially unable to trace Vedant, which led to speculation on social media. He later clarified that he had spoken to Vedant’s elder brother and said the family was under considerable stress. The lawyer also offered free legal assistance if the family chose to approach the court after exhausting available remedies with CBSE.
These allegations have added to existing criticism of CBSE’s post-result re-evaluation process. Students had already complained in recent days about payment failures, high fee deductions, inaccessible pages, portal glitches and blurred scanned answer sheets.
Calls Grow for Verification and Audit
Education experts believe the allegations, if found genuine, could damage confidence in digital evaluation systems. They argue that even small errors in scanning, indexing or uploading can have serious consequences for students whose admissions and eligibility depend heavily on board examination scores.
Parents and students are now demanding immediate verification of physical answer sheets and a transparent audit of the scanning and digitisation process used in the OnScreen Marking system. Experts have also suggested that an independent verification mechanism should be introduced to ensure answer sheet authenticity before results are processed.
The controversy has highlighted the challenges faced by education boards while shifting to fully digitised evaluation systems. CBSE has not yet issued a detailed public clarification on the specific allegations of answer sheet mismatch, while affected students continue to seek verification and corrective action.
