CBSE opens re-evaluation portal, adds Aadhaar check after day-long delay

The board activated its re-evaluation facility after a day's delay, introduced Aadhaar verification and said the portal faced multiple cyberattack attempts

A day after its verification and re-evaluation portal remained inoperative despite being scheduled to open, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Tuesday activated the facility for students seeking redressal of issues in scanned answer books and re-evaluation of answers for the 2026 board examinations, even as it claimed the platform came under multiple cyberattack attempts during the day.

 

The portal, which will remain open until June 6, comes amid continuing complaints from students over blurred scanned copies, missing pages, missing supplementary sheets and other discrepancies in evaluated answer books accessed through CBSE's Online Service Management (OSM) portal.

 

 

In a post on X, CBSE said the re-evaluation portal was supporting more than 8,000 concurrent users and had processed over 16,000 successful submissions by 3 pm on Tuesday. The board said malicious actors attempted to disrupt services through a barrage of cyberattacks, including a denial-of-service (DoS) attack that generated 1.5 million hits on the portal within two minutes and more than 100,000 attempts at unauthorised file access.

 

"Based on student feedback, we have further refined the platform, including extending session time limits to make the process more convenient and seamless," the board said, adding that its cybersecurity teams remained vigilant.

 

In a separate post on X, the board said Aadhaar verification has been introduced "for security reasons". Students will be required to enter their Aadhaar number while logging into the portal. Those who do not possess Aadhaar may use the Aadhaar details of a parent, relative or guardian.

 

"Please note that Aadhaar verification has been included for security reasons. For children who do not have Aadhaar, a parent's, relative's or guardian's Aadhaar details may be used," CBSE said.

 

The board added that the Aadhaar name, date of birth and gender entered on the portal must correspond to the details of the person whose Aadhaar number is being used.

 

The Aadhaar requirement has also drawn questions from some stakeholders. CBSE had earlier integrated APAAR (Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry) IDs into the board examination registration process, although it later relaxed the requirement in cases where APAAR IDs had not been generated. Critics on social media have questioned why the re-evaluation portal could not be authenticated through the APAAR framework, which is linked to student records, instead of requiring Aadhaar details separately.

 

“This system would work only if Aadhaar is seeded during students' enrolment for the examination. Introducing any new variable at this stage could become more challenging in the case of some students,” said Deepak Maheshwari, senior policy advisor at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP). “On one hand, it could provide some sort of verification but, on the other hand, it could unnecessarily expose particular details.”

 

Maheshwari added that several people do not have their dates of birth recorded in Aadhaar, which could lead to further confusion in matching identities.

 

The move follows weeks of scrutiny over CBSE's post-result processes after students raised concerns about the quality and completeness of scanned answer books supplied through the OSM portal. Several students had complained on social media that copies provided by the board were blurred, incomplete or missing pages, making it difficult to verify evaluation.

 

"Students may apply online for resolution of issues observed in the supplied scanned copy of the answer book, including missing pages, missing supplementary sheets, missing maps/graphs, blurred pages, incorrect answer book, or evaluation against a different set," the board said.

 

Last month, CBSE slashed re-evaluation fees, reducing the fee for obtaining scanned copies of answer sheets to ₹100 from ₹700, verification charges to ₹100 from ₹500, and re-evaluation fees to ₹25 per question from ₹100.