A Class 12 student and blogger from Ranchi, Jharkhand, Sarthak Sidhant, has taken the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to task, asking for a re-evaluation deadline extension using the board's own deadline reminder.
Sidhant, who had exposed discrepancies in the CBSE's on-screen marking portal, was responding to a CBSE post on X, telling Class 12 candidates that June 7 was the last day to apply for verification and re-evaluation of their answer sheets.
He posted, "Can u please extend the deadline please because i was busy this week exposing you," capping a remarkable few days of his investigation.
Sidhant had presented a seven-page set of findings to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, chaired by Congress MP Digvijaya Singh, on June 2, leading to the government transferring CBSE chairman Rahul Singh and secretary Himanshu Gupta.
Sidhant has said that after a friend told him about tech gaps in the CBSE's on-screen marking portal, he turned to the tender documents behind the OSM, a new system launched this year.
He alleged at least 15 discrepancies across successive tenders awarded for the OSM system, which the CBSE and the company denied.
Sidhant said his research was done with ethical hacker Nisarga Adhikary, 19, who had flagged a vulnerability in the OSM portal.
The CBSE has said it followed General Financial Rules and picked the lowest bidder, but a probe is on.
