Seven years ago, Telangana witnessed one of its darkest education crises in modern India. Thousands of bright students suddenly failed their board examinations - now recalled as the infamous 2019 Telangana Intermediate examination fiasco. Some toppers were awarded zero and others were marked absent despite writing their papers. Families panicked and flooded board offices carrying answer sheets and hall tickets, desperately trying to prove that something had gone terribly wrong. And then came the suicides. But guess what? The same company that back in 2019 went by the name of Gloarena Technologies allegedly rebranded itself to Coempt Eduteck Pvt Ltd and was given the tender of Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) Class 12 digital evaluation system and yet again they played with the trust of students and sanctity of an exam. 17-year-oldSarthak Sidhant's investigation revealed how CBSE’s own tender documents of May and August 2025 raise some uncomfortable questions: Were eligibility norms quietly rewritten to accommodate the company? Was its controversial history ignored accidentally... or deliberately?
In April 2019, the Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education declared results for nearly 9.7 lakh students and what followed was pure chaos. More than 3 lakh students were declared failed. Students who had consistently scored above 90 percent suddenly received zeros and some were marked absent despite appearing for exams. All because of massive software and evaluation failures. One of the most shocking cases involved a student initially awarded zero in Telugu who later received 99 after re-verification.
Public outrage intensified after reports emerged that over 20 students died by suicide in the days following the results. The controversy became a statewide political crisis and forced court intervention. The company handling critical portions of the digital processing system was Globarena Technologies Pvt Ltd and a government-appointed committee later found serious flaws in the process, including technical failures, OMR bubbling issues and administrative lapses. Reports later suggested that the panel also found the company may not have fully met baseline eligibility criteria for the contract itself. Yet, despite the scale of the controversy, Globarena was never formally blacklisted, as per reports.
The company has denied that the name change was linked to the Telangana scandal. In fact its CEO VSN Raju recently told media 'there was nothing to hide' and pointed out that courts did not hold the company criminally liable in the Telangana matter. What's surprising is that despite being at the centre of one of India’s worst examination controversies, the company continued securing major education-tech contracts. And eventually, it entered the CBSE ecosystem.
The latest controversy erupted after CBSE implemented its On-Screen Marking (OSM) system for Class 12 evaluation. Students across India began reporting problems... blurred scanned answer sheets, incomplete uploads, missing pages, alleged mismatches in copies and portal crashes.
But the controversy escalated dramatically when a Class 12 student named Sarthak Sidhant began independently examining CBSE tender documents available on public procurement portals. His findings went viral. Describing himself as 'one of the 17 lakh students affected' the Jharkhand student reportedly analysed multiple versions of CBSE’s Request for Proposal (RFP) documents and found that the eligibility criteria in the tender process appeared to evolve in ways that allegedly favoured Coempt EduTeck. His most explosive allegation involved changes to the blacklisting clause.
Earlier versions of the tender reportedly stated that companies blacklisted in the past could be disqualified but later versions allegedly changed it to companies 'currently blacklisted.' And this is what he stated in front of the parliamentary committee yesterday, after which bothCBSE chairman and secretaryhave been transferred and a one-member committee has been formed to probe into the matter. The student publicly asked: Why would a board responsible for millions of students weaken a clause meant to protect examination integrity?
The student’s analysis claims several other important changes were introduced across successive tender rounds:
• The minimum CMMI certification requirement was allegedly reduced from Level 5 to Level 3.
• Experience requirements were broadened or diluted.
Source: India Latest News, Breaking News Today, Top News Headlines | Times Now
