The Centre on Tuesday appointed senior bureaucrats Lokhande Prashant Sitaram and Varun Bhardwaj as the new chairperson and secretary of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), following a reshuffle triggered by the controversy over the board’s On-Screen Marking (OSM) system.
According to a Personnel Ministry order, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the appointment of Lokhande Prashant Sitaram as CBSE chairperson in place of Rahul Singh.
Sitaram, a 2001-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the AGMUT cadre, is currently serving as Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs.
The government also approved the appointment of Varun Bhardwaj as CBSE secretary, replacing Himanshu Gupta. Bhardwaj, a 2008-batch officer of the Indian Information Service (IIS), is currently working as Director in the Ministry of Education.
The order also said outgoing CBSE chairman Rahul Singh has been appointed Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, while Himanshu Gupta has been prematurely repatriated to his parent cadre, the Ministry of Home Affairs, on administrative grounds with an “extended cooling-off” condition. Gupta will be eligible for another central deputation after December 12, 2030.
The reshuffle comes hours after the Centre removed the top CBSE leadership and ordered an inquiry into alleged irregularities in the procurement and implementation of the OSM system used for digital evaluation in Class 12 examinations.
The CBSE has been under scrutiny after students alleged mismatches between scanned answer sheets uploaded on the system and their original handwriting, raising concerns about possible errors in the digital evaluation process.
The board has also faced complaints over technical glitches, payment failures, and delays in verification and re-evaluation processes, prompting demands for greater transparency and accountability.
