The National Students' Union of India (NSUI) has approached the Delhi High Court alleging serious irregularities in the Central Board of Secondary Education's (CBSE) newly introduced On-Screen Marking (OSM) system.

The public interest litigation (PIL), filed through NSUI President Vinod Jhakhar, seeks an independent inquiry into the digital evaluation process and highlights several complaints raised by students, parents and teachers across the country.

According to the plea, the OSM system was introduced to digitise the evaluation of answer sheets by scanning them and allowing examiners to assess them online. However, after the Class XII results were declared, many students reported problems such as blurred scans, missing pages, incomplete uploads, answer sheet mismatches and unexpectedly low marks.

NSUI argued that the large number of students seeking copies of their scanned answer sheets after the results reflects a lack of confidence in the evaluation process.

The petition further claims that the existing grievance redressal mechanism is inadequate, leaving students with limited options to challenge possible errors. It argues that there is no effective system for manual verification or independent rechecking of disputed answer sheets.

The plea also points out that delays in resolving such disputes can adversely affect students, as college admissions and other academic processes continue while their grievances remain pending.

NSUI has therefore requested the Court to direct CBSE to reopen the verification portal for one month and allow manual rechecking and physical verification of answer sheets in disputed cases.

The petition also seeks an independent inquiry under the supervision of the Union Government into the alleged shortcomings of the OSM system and calls for safeguards and guidelines to ensure transparency in future digital evaluation processes.

The PIL has been filed through Advocates Rishav Ranjan, Ajay Chhikara, Omar Hoda, Eesha Bakshi and Shubham Mishra.