CBSE OSM row: Supreme Court refuses to direct reopening of re-evaluation portal for class XII answer sheets

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to direct the reopening of the CBSE Class XII examination verification and re-evaluation portal for students with grievances over the evaluation of their answer sheets through the On-Screen Marking (OSM) system.

A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana observed the portal had already been opened for all candidates for a specified period and that reopening it could trigger lakhs of fresh claims.

"If you don't use the bus, you miss the bus," CJI Kant said.

The Court was hearing a petition challenging the manner in which CBSE introduced the OSM system for evaluation of answer sheets. The plea pointed out that OSM was implemented for the first time in 2026 and that teachers were not provided formal training before its implementation.

The plea alleged that the introduction of digital scanning resulted in several irregularities, including certain pages of answer sheets not being scanned, illegible scans and answers or pages not being evaluated.

The petitioner claimed that these errors led to arbitrary evaluation and in some cases, non-evaluation of answer sheets.

On August 14, the Court had asked the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to explore ways to protect the interests of students facing difficulties in entrance-based admissions due to their low scores.

Today, counsel representing the petitioner said that they were seeking only for a week's extension of the re-evaluation application window.

"The website crashed and many students could not apply for on-screen verification," the counsel said.

However, CJI Kant observed that the students should have availed the re-evaluation window while it was open.

"Why should we direct them to open this window again for you? If you don't use the bus, you miss the bus. The window was open for everyone for a specified period," the Court said.

The petitioner's counsel responded that some candidates had faced a technical glitch. However, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that 1.68 lakh students successfully applied during the notified window.

"The Delhi High Court has already dismissed a similar challenge," Mehta said.

Considering these submissions, the Court said there was no reason to intervene in the matter.

"Today you are asking us to reopen it. Tomorrow it will lead to revival of claims by thousands, even lakhs. The difficulty is that admissions are already over," the Bench said.

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