New Delhi: A Delhi student, Vedant Shrivastava, who was called “Pakistani” online after flagging discrepancies in the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) new On‑Screen Marking (OSM) system, was vindicated on Monday when the board admitted a technical glitch had uploaded an incorrect scanned answer sheet under his roll number.
As the matter drew wider attention, and other students lodged similar complaints, the CBSE said on Monday evening that it had emailed the correct copy of his answer book and that “necessary action for updating your result, as applicable, is also being undertaken accordingly.”
The acknowledgement adds to scrutiny of this year’s OSM rollout for Class 12 evaluations, introduced to speed up assessments and increase transparency in post‑result procedures. The board had said OSM would help minimise human error and make scripts more accessible for re‑evaluation.
Students Report Scanning Problems
Several students have complained of blurred scans, missing pages and mismatched answer sheets. Shrivastava was among those who raised concerns publicly.
In a reply to Vedant on X, the CBSE said the matter had been reviewed and the correct Physics answer book sent to his registered email, adding that “necessary action for updating your result, as applicable, is also being undertaken accordingly.” The board thanked him for raising the concern and said, “We appreciate your patience and assure you of our continued support.”
Family Confirms Correction
Vedant said the board shared the right answer sheet. “We have got correct answer sheet by CBSE. CBSE officials reached out to us in the evening and has sent my answer sheet. We were correct on our claims and the answer sheet indeed got exchanged,” he said on X.
He had applied for scanned copies on May 19 after receiving what he described as “unexpectedly low marks” in Physics when CBSE announced Class 12 results on May 13.
Mismatch Discovered After Scans
After receiving the scans on May 23, Vedant found the Physics paper uploaded against his roll number did not belong to him. He posted side‑by‑side screenshots from his English and Computer Science papers to show the handwriting in the Physics script was different from his own.
“I studied for an entire year. I sacrificed sleep, peace of mind, outings, everything for these exams. And now I don’t even know whether my actual Physics paper was checked. Do students really deserve this?” he wrote on X on May 23.
Post Sparks Backlash
The post racked up more than 3.2 million views by Monday evening and quickly sparked an online storm.
Many users accused him of trying to defame the CBSE and seized on his X location, listed as “South Asia,” to label him “anti‑national” and “Pakistani.”
Toll On Family
“My son faced great difficulty even applying for re‑evaluation. After getting the scanned copies, he could not sleep properly and decided to raise the matter on X by posting screenshots of his answer scripts,” Shrivastava’s father, Sanjay Shrivastava, told Hindustan Times.
“He was called Pakistani and heavily trolled because his account location was showing South Asia. His brother later clarified that this happened due to a technical issue while setting up the account. It has affected his mental health and he is staying away from his phone now,” he said.
