New Delhi, May 27 (IANS) The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Wednesday emphatically rejected Lok Sabha Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi’s allegations of impropriety over entering into a contract with a particular education technology firm.

“It is erroneous, misleading, and not based on facts,” the CBSE posted on social media platform X.

“CBSE has followed the General Financial Rules protocols scrupulously in awarding 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,” it stated.

LoP Rahul Gandhi responded on the same platform, stating that it was “a denial, not an answer”, and asked the Education Minister and CBSE to answer his “four simple questions”.

He further said that the “future of 18.5 lakh students has been put in jeopardy. They deserve the truth”.

LoP Rahul Gandhi had earlier alleged “massive tampering” in the CBSE exam results and claimed that the EdTech company Coempt Edu Teck had been involved in a similar controversy in Telangana in 2019 under the name Globarena.

Calling it a “deliberate conspiracy”, he raised a series of questions.

“Why was the CBSE contract given to COEMPT, and on whose orders? Which rules and procedures were bypassed to award this contract to the company? COEMPT had already been embroiled in controversies under the name Globarena. Why didn’t CBSE know about it? Why weren’t background checks done? What exactly is the connection between COEMPT’s management and the Modi government?” LoP Rahul Gandhi asked in his earlier X post.

He also demanded that an “independent judicial inquiry and SIT be immediately constituted to bring the real culprits of this entire scam to light”.

The controversy erupted after irregularities were alleged in the digital evaluation system used by CBSE for NEET and other examinations.

The issue surfaced after a student, Vedant Shrivastava, raised concerns about discrepancies in marks and the lack of evaluation transparency.

Vedant applied for a photocopy of his Physics answer sheet on May 19 after receiving what he believed were unexpectedly low marks. Four days later, he posted on X that the answer sheet emailed to him by CBSE did not match his handwriting and appeared to belong to another student.

On Monday, the Board rectified its earlier mistake of sharing a different answer sheet with Vedant during the evaluation review process and provided him with the correct one.

CBSE admitted to an error in its new On-Screen Marking (OSM) system after the Class 12 student was mistakenly sent another candidate’s Physics answer sheet.

The episode has raised broader questions about the reliability of CBSE’s digital evaluation process after serious flaws were reportedly detected in the new system.

The matter has sparked a nationwide debate on transparency and fairness in digital evaluation, raising wider concerns about systemic reliability.

–IANS

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