Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan addressed the controversy surrounding alleged discrepancies in the CBSE Class 12 evaluation and re-evaluation process.Speaking in New Delhi, he said the government would take strict action if any irregularities were found in the digital evaluation system.He also appealed to political parties and public figures not to increase the mental stress of students during the ongoing issue.

Pradhan criticised Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, alleging that he was attempting to politicise the matter and had consistently opposed technological and scientific initiatives in the country.

The remarks came after Rahul Gandhi demanded an independent judicial probe into alleged irregularities linked to CBSE’s On-Screen Marking (OSM) process.

The minister later chaired a meeting with CBSE officials to review technical and payment-related problems faced by students during the re-evaluation process.

He stated that nearly 17 lakh students appeared for the Class 12 examinations and around 98 lakh answer sheets, amounting to nearly 40 crore scanned pages, were digitally processed.According to him, the digital evaluation system was introduced to improve transparency and make the process more student-friendly.Pradhan said students were now able to access scanned copies of their answer sheets online and raise queries regarding marking.Around four lakh students had already accessed nearly eleven lakh answer copies.

He also mentioned that institutions such as IIT Kanpur and IIT Madras, along with PSU banks including SBI and Bank of Baroda, had been involved in strengthening the system.The controversy began after some students alleged that the scanned answer sheets uploaded during re-evaluation did not match their handwriting.

CBSE denied any breach in the actual evaluation system and clarified that the portal mentioned online was only an internal testing platform containing sample data, not the live assessment system.