Rahul alleges OSM contract scam; CBSE denies charges
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Wednesday rejected an allegation that it had awarded a contract to Coempt Edutech, saying the claim was “erroneous, misleading and not based on facts.”
The board said the contract was indeed awarded to Coempt Edutech, but dismissed the allegations against the firm. The response came after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged irregularities in the CBSE’s On-Screen Marking (OSM) system and demanded an independent judicial probe and an investigation by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the matter.
“CBSE rejects the allegations regarding the award of contract to Coempt Edutech. It is erroneous, misleading and not based on facts,” the board said in a reply to Rahul on X.
It said the contract was awarded after following due procedure under the General Financial Rules.
“CBSE has followed the General Financial Rules protocols scrupulously in the awarding of the contract to the agency. CBSE floated the RFP for Digital Evaluation of Answer books for Board Exams 2026 on the Central Public Procurement portal on August 28, 2025 and awarded the contract to the qualified bidder,” the board said.
Earlier in the day, Rahul demanded an independent judicial probe as well as an SIT to unearth the truth behind the “entire scam”, and asked why a firm that had a murky past in Telangana handed the contract to the Board. Gandhi said CBSE students and their parents are traumatised, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi “has nothing to say.” In a video put out on his social media accounts, Gandhi said unbelievable details are emerging about the Class 12 CBSE exam.
“COEMPT, the company that did the On-Screen Marking (OSM) for your exam, was actually called Globarena. Globarena has carried out this scam twice before in Telangana, once in the board exam in Telangana in 2019 and after that again in Telangana in 2023. The same OSM-based errors were responsible for the death by suicide of 23 young Indians in Telangana,” the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha said.
“This was all public information. It was known to everybody, and yet for some hidden reason, the CBSE chose the same company again. It took us 30 seconds to figure out that this company was previously called something else. I am absolutely certain that the people in the CBSE and in the Government of India were aware of this company’s background,” Gandhi said.
He urged CBSE students and their parents to share his video and ask the questions posed by him to the Government and the prime minister.
The Congress sought to know who awarded the contract to the firm and whether any procedure was circumvented in the awarding of the contract. He also wondered why CBSE could not figure out the antecedents of the firm.
“Third, and most important – what is the exact relationship between the COEMPT management and the Modi Government?” Gandhi said in his video statement.
He alleged that the CBSE exam results were marred by massive irregularities, leaving millions of students across the country, along with their parents, in a state of shock.
“And Modi ji? As always — no answers, no accountability, and no shame,” he said.
“This is not a mistake — it is a calculated conspiracy,” Gandhi said.
The Congress leader also assured “our Gen Z friends” that their hard work will not be allowed to go in vain. “We will get to the bottom of this conspiracy and root out this corruption once and for all.”
A row erupted after some class 12 students alleged scoring discrepancies and mismatches in the scanned copies of their answer sheets uploaded by the board and their handwriting, casting a doubt on the OSM system.
