NSUI moves Delhi HC over CBSE’s On-Screen Marking system, seeks independent inquiry

The National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) on Tuesday (June 2, 2026) moved the Delhi High Court seeking an independent enquiry into the alleged large-scale irregularities in Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) On-Screen Marking (OSM) system for Class 12 exam.

The public interest litigation (PIL) by the NSUI also seeks manual rechecking and physical verification of answer sheets of aggrieved students. The plea is likely to be heard by a Vacation Bench of the High Court on June 8, 2026.

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In the PLI, the NSUI has sought a direction to the authorities to keep its portal open for verification and revaluation of answer sheets of affected students for one month.

The Congress party’s student wing said the sharp decline in overall performance in this year’s class 12 results has led to widespread concern among students and parents regarding the fairness, consistency and reliability of the OSM system, especially in the light of several requests for scanned answer books and complaints on discrepancies and technical issues acknowledged by the CBSE.

‘Not confined to a small set of students’

The plea asserted that concerns around OSM were not confined to a “small set of students” and those whose answer sheets were affected by scanning defects, mismatch errors or other technical failures cannot be made to suffer because of deficiencies in the system.

“The Respondent No. 2 (CBSE) itself acknowledged, through its own public communications, that the portal for obtaining scanned copies of answer books suffered technical glitches and that a very large number of applications, approximately 1,27,146 applications concerning 3,87,399 scanned answer books, had been submitted in a very short time,” the plea submitted.

“The Petitioner submits that this figure reflects an extraordinary level of concern and lack of confidence amongst students regarding the process. When such a large number of students seek scanned copies immediately after result declaration, the matter cannot be treated as a routine post-result formality,” it added.

The plea claimed that the existing grievance mechanism is inadequate as it left students with “limited digital remedies” and “no meaningful process for manual verification or independent rechecking of disputed answer books.”