NEW DELHI: The controversy surrounding the post-result process of the Central Board of Secondary Education intensified after multiple Class XII students claimed that scanned answer sheets uploaded by the board did not belong to them.
What began as complaints regarding portal crashes, payment glitches and blurred scanned copies escalated into a wider credibility crisis surrounding CBSE’s OnScreen Marking (OSM) system on Monday.
At the centre of the controversy is Class XII student Vedant Shrivastava, whose allegations went viral on social media after he claimed that the Physics answer sheet uploaded under his roll number was “completely different” from the one he had written during the examination.
In a series of posts on X, Vedant said the handwriting, answer presentation and writing style in the Physics paper bore no resemblance to his own.
According to him, his family and teachers immediately identified the mismatch after comparing the uploaded copy with his English and Computer Science answer sheets.
“The Physics answer sheet sent by CBSE is not my answer sheet at all. The handwriting, spacing, slant and sentence flow are entirely different,” he wrote, alleging that he had effectively been awarded marks for “someone else’s answers.”
The student further claimed that the discrepancy had impacted his PCM aggregate, preventing him from crossing the crucial 75 per cent eligibility benchmark required for several professional courses and admissions.
Vedant also questioned the transparency of the OSM system, introduced by CBSE to streamline and digitise evaluation.
“If answer sheets themselves are getting mismatched, how can students trust this process?” he asked, urging the board to verify his original physical answer sheet and investigate whether papers were allegedly exchanged during scanning or digitisation.
The issue intensified after an advocate publicly stated that he was initially unable to trace the student, triggering speculation online.
However, the lawyer later clarified that he had spoken to Vedant’s elder brother and that the family was under “tremendous stress”. He also offered free legal assistance if the family chose to approach the court after exhausting remedies with CBSE.
Adding to the concern, several other students also reported similar discrepancies. One student alleged that the scanned copy of their Chemistry answer sheet did not match their handwriting or responses and shared comparisons online with answer sheets from other subjects.