With the Central Board of Secondary Education facing flak for its controversial new on-screen marking system, the Union government is making changes at the top, replacing the Board’s Chairman and Secretary on Tuesday (June 2, 2026). It also set up a one-member committee to inquire into the CBSE’s procurement of services for the on-screen marking process.

Senior IAS officer Lokhande Prashant Sitaram, who has been serving as an Additional Home Secretary in the Home Ministry, was appointed the new CBSE Chairperson, according to the Cabinet Appointments Committee. He replaces Rahul Singh, who has been shunted off to the Agriculture Ministry instead.

Varun Bhardwaj, a director in the Education Ministry, will take over as CBSE Secretary, replacing Himanshu Gupta, who has been prematurely repatriated to his parent cadre in the Home Ministry on administrative grounds with the condition of ‘extended cooling off’. He will only be eligible for another central deputation after December 12, 2030.

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Probe into OSM portal

On-screen marking is a digital evaluation process introduced by the CBSE for this year’s Class 12 examination. Answer sheets were to be scanned and uploaded so that evaluators could assess them virtually. However, students complained that the scans were blurry, pages were missing, and even mixed up with other answer sheets. As more students started applying to see their answer sheets, repeated glitches popped up, including in the online payment process. Ethical hackers exposed vulnerabilities in the OnMark platform, showing that they could access students’ answer sheets and their personal data. Questions have been raised about the tender process for the on-screen marking system contract, which was awarded to a company with a dodgy record.

The on-screen marking inquiry committee will be chaired by S. Radha Chauhan, chairperson of the Capacity Building Commission, and will submit its report to the Department of Personnel and Training within one month, according to a memorandum issued by the Cabinet Secretariat. Ms. Chauhan has been empowered to obtain the assistance of officials from other departments as required, while the Capacity Building Commission will provide secretarial assistance to the panel.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Parliamentary Committee for Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports, chaired by Congress MP Digvijaya Singh, summoned top officials of the Board and the Ministry of School Education to discuss the issue. Sarthak Sidhant, 17, a Class 12 student from Ranchi who exposed the discrepancies in the tenders which awarded the on-screen marking contract to COEMPT Eduteck, also gave a presentation to the committee.