CBSE Gets New Chairman Amid Massive On-Screen Marking Row

Indian Administrative Service officer Prashant Sitaram Lokhande has been appointed Chairman of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), and Varun Bhardwaj has been made Secretary

02 Jun 2026, 15:28 · www.ndtv.com

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Bureaucrat Prashant Sitaram Lokhande has been appointed CBSE Chairman
Varun Bhardwaj has been made CBSE Secretary amid on-screen marking controversy
One-member committee is reviewing CBSE’s new on-screen marking system

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New Delhi:

Indian Administrative Service officer Prashant Sitaram Lokhande has been appointed Chairman of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Varun Bhardwaj, a 2008-batch Indian Information Service officer, has been made Secretary of the education board that's firefighting a massive row over alleged irregularities linked to the on-screen marking (OSM) system, including the manner in which the CBSE gave a contract to a controversial private company.

Before this, Lokhande, who is from the 2001 AGMUT cadre, had been serving as additional secretary at the Union Home Ministry. He replaces Rahul Singh, who has now been sent to the Agriculture Ministry as additional secretary.

Before his appointment as CBSE Secretary, Bhardwaj served in the Education Ministry. He replaces Himanshu Gupta, whose "premature repatriation" to the parent cadre, Union Home Ministry, on administrative grounds has been approved amid the OSM storm the CBSE ran into.

A one-member committee is looking into the CBSE's newly introduced OSM system and will give its findings to the government soon. The board introduced the digital evaluation mechanism this year for Class 12 exams. Under the new system, evaluators assessed scanned copies of answer sheets instead of physical answer books.

The CBSE opened a re-evaluation website for students today amid the growing backlash over the controversy. It said the website will stay open till June 6 midnight. During this period, students can apply for verification of issues observed in their scanned answer books and request re-evaluation of specific answers if they are dissatisfied with the assessment.

The CBSE clarified that only those students who have already obtained scanned copies of their evaluated answer books can use this facility.

The CBSE has also faced criticism over technical glitches and payment failures, apart from the delays in the verification and re-evaluation process, prompting demands for greater transparency and accountability.

Earlier today, Sarthak Sidhant, a Class 12 student who gave a presentation before a parliamentary panel on education about his findings on the CBSE row, received big praise from the members of the panel. According to sources, the members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education were so impressed that one of them asked why didn't the CBSE already appoint him an adviser.

The student had claimed he found alleged irregularities in the CBSE giving a contract to Coempt Edu Teck Pvt Ltd for handling the scanning and digital evaluation of answer sheets. Sidhant systematically presented his arguments to the members, highlighting various discrepancies from the financial criteria stipulated in Coempt's balance sheet, such as the requirement for a net worth of Rs 50 crore, and the failure to disclose its "Blacklisted Earlier" status to the fact that the company's previous avatar, Globarena, had worked under the Telangana Education Board.

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