Senior IAS Officer Lokhande Prashant Sitaram Appointed CBSE Chairperson Amid OSM Row

In a major administrative overhaul, the Narendra Modi government has appointed senior IAS officer Lokhande Prashant Sitaram as the new CBSE Chairperson , following the transfer of outgoing chairman Rahul Singh and Secretary Himanshu Gupta amid escalating controversy over the On-Screen Marking (OSM) system.

The Centre has also ordered a formal inquiry into the procurement process for OSM services, marking one of the most significant interventions in the functioning of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in recent years.

A one-member committee headed by S Radha Chauhan , Chairperson of the Capacity Building Commission, has been constituted to investigate the procurement of OSM services. The panel has been tasked with submitting its report within one month to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and is empowered to seek assistance from other departments.

The leadership change comes after weeks of scrutiny over CBSE’s evaluation and post-result processes, following widespread complaints of glitches in scanned answer sheets, missing pages, and portal access issues after Class 10 and 12 results. Students, parents, and teachers had raised concerns over delays and inconsistencies in re-evaluation and verification services.

The controversy escalated further after 17-year-old Jharkhand student Sarthak Sidhant appeared before a parliamentary standing committee and presented a detailed submission alleging anomalies in the OSM tendering process. He claimed that successive revisions in tender documents altered key provisions such as blacklisting norms, eligibility criteria, technical qualifications, and vendor evaluation standards , potentially impacting transparency in the selection process.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, chaired by Digvijaya Singh, heard his presentation along with submissions from CBSE and Ministry of Education officials, who defended the procurement and evaluation framework.

Before the reshuffle, outgoing chairman Rahul Singh oversaw CBSE’s examinations, academics, affiliations, and policy implementation, while Secretary Himanshu Gupta handled administration, finance, and operational management across the board’s nationwide network.

CBSE has maintained that technical glitches in its system have been resolved and extended the deadline for re-evaluation applications till June 6.

The developments mark a significant escalation of the OSM controversy into a wider probe involving procurement transparency, digital evaluation systems, parliamentary scrutiny, and administrative accountability in India’s school examination framework .