The controversy began with two students. But within days, questions widened beyond individual complaints to concerns over the credibility of the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) post-result system, answer sheet access process and the newly implemented On-Screen Marking (OSM) mechanism.
Class 12 students Vedant and Sanjana separately alleged that the scanned copies of answer sheets provided by CBSE during the re-evaluation process did not match their handwriting.
In both cases, students claimed the answer sheets appeared to belong to someone else. The incidents have triggered discussions on whether isolated mismatches occurred or whether larger gaps exist in the digital evaluation process.
The implications extend far beyond two individual complaints. This year, nearly 17 lakh students appeared for the CBSE Class 12 examinations. A significant proportion of them came from the Science stream, where Physics and Chemistry are among the most commonly taken subjects.
Even conservative estimates suggest that almost 4 lakh students would have written these two papers alone.
That is what makes the controversy potentially explosive for CBSE. If even one Physics or Chemistry answer sheet was wrongly tagged, scanned, uploaded or mapped to another candidate during the OSM process, it raises uncomfortable logistical questions about the handling of lakhs of scripts moving through a highly digitised evaluation chain.
Experts say the issue is no longer about a single clerical error, but about whether adequate safeguards existed at every stage, from scanning and barcode tagging to digital storage and student access.
For a board overseeing one of the world’s largest school examination systems, even isolated mismatches expose what critics describe as a colossal failure of process integrity and quality control.
WHAT IS THE CONTROVERSY?
After CBSE announced Class 12 results on May 13, students were allowed to seek scanned copies of evaluated answer sheets before applying for verification or re-evaluation under the revised post-result process.
The system was introduced as a transparency measure. However, several students complained of portal crashes, payment issues, delays and blurred scans.
Then came allegations that answer sheets themselves may have been mismatched.
The controversy gained national attention after Vedant, a Class 12 student, shared a post on social media claiming the Physics answer sheet sent to him by CBSE did not belong to him.
According to his statement, the handwriting, spacing, sentence formation and writing style in the scanned copy differed from his own. He questioned whether his original answer sheet had been evaluated at all.
His family said they initially believed it could be a misunderstanding, but comparisons with his other answer sheets reportedly strengthened their doubts.
The case went viral and drew widespread reactions online.
CBSE later said Vedant’s complaint was examined and confirmed that the correct Physics answer book had been sent to him. The board also stated that necessary steps to update his result were being taken.
Screenshots circulating online reportedly showed communication from CBSE informing him that revised marks would be updated.
This became significant because it indicated that an error linked to answer book access or mapping may have occurred.
SANJANA'S ALLEGATION: 'ONLY THE FIRST PAGE WAS MINE'
Soon after Vedant’s case surfaced, another Class 12 student, Sanjana, raised a similar concern regarding her Chemistry answer sheet.
According to her account, the first page carrying personal details appeared to be hers, but the handwriting and responses on the internal pages were different.
She claimed those pages belonged to someone else.
After receiving a lower-than-expected score in Chemistry, she had applied for scanned copies of answer sheets to review her evaluation.
Sanjana alleged that she stopped short of applying for re-evaluation because she believed the uploaded answer booklet itself was incorrect.
Her family reportedly contacted CBSE and sought verification of the original answer sheet.
Unlike Vedant’s case, no public confirmation from CBSE regarding correction of Sanjana’s answer sheet had emerged at the time of reporting.
So whose copies did Vedant and Sanjana receive? This remains the central unanswered question.
Neither CBSE nor publicly available records have identified whose answer sheets may have been attached or whether the issue occurred during scanning, tagging, uploading or evaluation.
In the whose copy did Vedanta have, please mention a last para saying why this mystery will have long term consequences. If his answer sheet was wrong, then the correct one was with someone else. What is the guarantee then that all Physics and Chemistry sheets were not mixed up?
