CBSE Chairman, Secretary replaced amid OSM row

While the Central Board of Secondary Education is facing criticism over its controversial new screen marking system, the Union government is making changes at the top level by changing the Chairman and Secretary of the Board on Tuesday, June 2, 2026. It also constituted a single-member committee to look into procurement of services for CBSE’s screen marking process.

According to the Cabinet Appointments Committee, senior IAS officer Lokhande Prashant Sitaram, who served as Additional Home Minister in the Ministry of Home Affairs, has been appointed as the new CBSE Chairman. He will replace Rahul Singh, who was sent to the Ministry of Agriculture instead.

Varun Bhardwaj, director in the Ministry of Education, will take over as CBSE Secretary, replacing Himanshu Gupta, who was prematurely reinstated to his parent cadre in the Ministry of Home Affairs on ‘extended cooling off’ on administrative grounds. However, after December 12, 2030, it will have the right to another central mandate.

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On-screen marking is a digital assessment process introduced by CBSE for this year’s Class 12 examination. Answer sheets had to be scanned and uploaded so that assessors could evaluate them virtually. However, students complained that the scans were blurry, pages were missing, and were even confused with other answer sheets. As more students began applying to see their answer sheets, repeated glitches emerged, including with the online payment process. Ethical hackers exposed security vulnerabilities in the OnMark platform, showing that they were able to access students’ answer sheets and personal data. Questions arose regarding the process of the screen marking system tender awarded to a company with a criminal record.

According to a circular issued by the Cabinet Secretariat, the screen marking inquiry committee will be chaired by Capacity Building Commission chairperson S. Radha Chauhan and will submit its report to the Ministry of Personnel and Training within a month. Ms Chauhan will have the authority to seek the assistance of officials from other departments when necessary, while the Capacity Building Commission will also provide secretarial assistance to the panel.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Parliamentary Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports, chaired by Congress MP Digvijaya Singh, summoned senior officials of the Board and the Ministry of School Education to discuss the issue. Sarthak Sidhant (17), a Class 12 student from Ranchi, who revealed inconsistencies in the tenders awarding the screen marking contract to COEMPT Eduteck, also made a presentation to the committee.