The National Students Union of India (NSUI) has filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Delhi High Court, raising concerns over the new On-Screen Marking (OSM) system introduced by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) for Class 12 board exams. The students’ organization has demanded that the verification process be restarted and manual checking of answer sheets in disputed cases should be carried out, along with an independent inquiry into the functioning of the entire digital assessment system.
In the petition, NSUI has claimed that after the declaration of 12th results, thousands of students across the country have lodged serious objections regarding their marks. Students complained that the scanned copies of their answer sheets were blurry, many pages were missing, many copies were not uploaded completely and some answer sheets were mismatched. Apart from this, many students got less marks and also faced problems in accessing the verification portal.
NSUI’s argument
The petitioner has argued that Class 12 board exam results play a vital role in college admissions, scholarships and future educational opportunities, and says that any error in the evaluation process can have serious consequences on students and their academic future. NSUI says that due to these flaws, many students got much less marks than expected, which can have an adverse effect on their future. NSUI argued that if there are technical flaws in the digital evaluation system then students should not suffer the consequences.
This demand was made in the petition
The PIL, filed through NSUI president Vinod Jhakhar, has sought a direction to the court to award compensation marks to students whose answer sheets were missing, blurred or wrongly evaluated. The petition said that after the declaration of the results, CBSE had issued public messages several times. In this, the board had admitted that there were technical problems in the portal for receiving scanned copies of answer sheets, due to which the deadline had to be extended several times.
According to the petition, more than 1.27 lakh applications related to about 3.87 lakh answer sheets were made by students to get scanned copies of their examined copies. NSUI says that such a large number of applications shows that there is a lot of concern among students regarding the new digital assessment system. The petition also states that many students have complained about blurred or missing scanned copies, unchecked answers and other evaluation related problems.
‘The problem arose due to flaws in the system’
The PIL states that students whose answer sheets have been scanned and evaluated properly are being treated differently, while those whose copies have technical defects are facing problems. It has also been argued in the petition that these students should not suffer this loss, because this problem has arisen due to the flaws in the system.
Apart from this, it has been said that the existing grievance redressal system is not adequate, as students have limited digital options and there is no strong alternative to manual verification in case of dispute regarding scanned copy. NSUI has demanded from the court that the process of verification and revaluation should be extended by one more month. Also, in cases where students are raising questions on scanned copies or evaluation, manual and physical checking of copies should also be allowed.
Demand for independent investigation
It has been said in the petition that there should be an independent investigation into the irregularities, technical flaws and shortcomings that have come to light in the OSM system. Also, a demand has been made from the court that CBSE should be instructed to make proper security measures and clear guidelines for the future digital evaluation system. NSUI has also demanded that extra marks be given as compensation to students in cases where there is no fault of the students but their answer sheets are lost, blurred or wrongly checked.
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