The Union government on Friday (August 21, 2026) told the Supreme Court that it cannot consider giving grace marks to students who raised discrepancies in the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) On-Screen Marking (OSM) of Class 12 answer sheets in 2026.

A one-week window was opened for re-evaluation and 1.68 lakh students had applied for change in their marks, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said, appearing before a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant.

“Now, they (petitioners) are asking for grace marks, that is not possible,” Mr. Mehta, for the Centre, said.

Advocate Laxmikant Matadan Shukla, representing petitioner Rakesh Binjola, said students who had suffered to due to faulty OSM evaluation have gone on to clear other entrance exams. However, they were stuck for not having scored the required minimum qualifying marks in the Class 12 exams. “The number is huge. A week is too less,” Mr. Shukla submitted.

He said that many students who had applied for re-evaluation did not receive their revised answer sheets.

Mr. Mehta said the Centre did not view the litigation as an adversarial one, however, the petitioners seemed to have missed their chance during the one week when the window was opened to accept applications for re-evaluation.

The top court asked the government to file an affidavit detailing the remedial measures taken following the spotting of irregularities in the OSM-valued answer sheets. The petitioner was instructed to file a rejoinder pointing out cases in which students seeking re-evaluation could not access the portal due to infrastructural deficiencies, and the cases of those who were able to give their answer sheets for re-evaluation, but did not receive their revised answer sheets.

The court had earlier sought a status report from the government detailing the progress made by a one-member probe committee of retired IAS officer and chairperson of the Capacity Building Commission, S. Radha Chauhan, tasked to unearth the reasons behind the technical defects.

Mr. Binjola has sought a fair and reasonable inquiry into the “patent irregularities” found in the OSM evaluation system. The petition sought individual responsibility to be fixed for a failure which affected a large number of students in India and abroad.

He said over 17 lakh students had appeared for the Class 12 exams in May 2026, including his son, whose answer sheet could not be uploaded on the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) website.

The petition had listed several irregularities, including the illegible scanning of answer sheet pages and unchecked answers showing “systematic negligence/failure resulting in a breach of duty of care”.

“Irregularities in the OSM checking system has affected a large number of students, recording a huge drop in the overall pass percentage this year to 85.2% - a drop of 3.19 percentage points from last year and the lowest level seen in the past seven years,” the petition has said.

Published - August 21, 2026 01:00 pm IST