The Congress on Sunday alleged a massive data breach involving the answer sheets of nearly two million CBSE Class 12 students, claiming the documents were accessible in the public domain and raising concerns over student privacy.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh described the alleged incident as a “data breach of monumental proportions” and accused the Centre of negligence in handling sensitive student data.
“In today’s developments on Mantri Pradhan’s Ministry of Scandals, the answer sheets of two million CBSE Grade 12 students have been shown to be available in the public domain,” Ramesh said in a post on X, targeting Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
He alleged that the incident exposed the “incompetence and callousness” of COEMPT, the company contracted by the CBSE for digitisation and evaluation work.
Ramesh further claimed that the leaked answer sheets showed folds and drop shadows, suggesting they may have been scanned using mobile phones rather than professional scanning systems.
“We know that the third RFP dropped the specification for a robotic scanner. The question then is what kind of scanners did COEMPT eventually use? Why are the scans of such poor quality?” he said.
The Congress leader also referred to a social media post alleging that an improperly configured AWS storage bucket enabled public access to CBSE media files, including answer sheets and question papers from the 2026 examinations.
The Opposition party had on Saturday accused the CBSE of an “astonishing mix of incompetence, corruption, and callousness” in implementing its On-Screen Marking (OSM) system for Class 12 board exams and reiterated its demand for Pradhan’s resignation along with a CBI probe into the matter.
Ramesh said separate investigations by a Class 12 student and a media report had raised questions over the board’s preparedness and intent behind introducing the digital evaluation system.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had earlier slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for remaining silent on the issue, alleging that the Centre was prioritising political survival over the future of lakhs of students.