Published May 30, 2026 | 4:26 PM ⚊ Updated May 30, 2026 | 4:39 PM
(Representational image/ iStock)
Synopsis: Explaining the timeline, Sartak noted, “The first tender was launched in February 2025 and then deleted from the GeM (Government e Marketplace) homepage. Three months later, four businesses, including Coempt and TCS, submitted proposals for the second tender. They all failed the technical evaluation, which resulted in the tender being cancelled. After two failed efforts, Coempt received the tender on the third attempt in August 2025.”
The CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) exam evaluation results have been caught in yet another controversy, with a 12th class student CBSE rewrote their rules to favour the Coempt Eduteck.
Sartak Sidant, one of the 17 lakh students who appeared recently conducted CBSE 12th class boards, took to his blog, and social media, alleging that rules, terms, conditions, and clauses, were rewritten, to favour a specific vendor.
It is also to be noted that, the Hyderabad-based Coempt Eduteck was formerly known as Globarena Technologies, the same firm responsible for the 2019 Telangana Intermediate exam fiasco, due to which 23 students died by suicide.
According to a Times of India report, the issue had, in fact, been flagged by a three-member expert committee appointed by the Telangana government after the 2019 fiasco. The panel found “systemic failures, procedural collapse, and glaring negligence” on the part of both the company and the board. Yet, academics point out, the company was never blacklisted.
Explaining the timeline, Sartak noted, “The first tender was launched in February 2025 and then deleted from the GeM (Government e Marketplace) homepage. Three months later, four businesses, including Coempt and TCS, submitted proposals for the second tender. They all failed the technical evaluation, which resulted in the tender being cancelled. After two failed efforts, Coempt received the tender on the third attempt in August 2025.”
According to Business Today report, Coempt quoted around ₹24.75 per answer booklet, inclusive of taxes, whereas TCS quoted roughly ₹65-66 per booklet before taxes, making the former the lowest bidder.
Sartak further elaborated on how the “barriers” were removed from second to third tender for making it easy for Coempt Eduteck to qualify.
The board’s earlier tender conditions explicitly stated that a service provider would be disqualified if a confidential inquiry or past performance record revealed a history of abandoning projects, failing to satisfactorily fulfill contractual obligations, or experiencing financial instability or weakness in any institution.
In the revised tender, however, these disqualification provisions were removed entirely. As a result, a bidder’s past record of operational failures or contractual non-performance no longer formed part of the eligibility assessment.
Had these clauses remained in place, Coempt’s operational track record under its previous identity, Globarena, in Telangana could have emerged as a significant obstacle to its qualification and may have invited closer scrutiny during the evaluation process.
The earlier General Terms and Conditions left little room for ambiguity. A bidder was liable for disqualification if it had a record of poor performance, had previously been blacklisted by the Board, or had been debarred from any assignment by a government organization.
In the new tender, however, this provision was quietly narrowed. The revised Pre-Qualification Criteria no longer referred to entities that had been blacklisted or debarred in the past. Instead, the requirement was reframed to apply only to bidders that are currently blacklisted.
This seemingly minor change significantly altered the scope of scrutiny. Under the earlier framework, a history of blacklisting or debarment could itself be grounds for disqualification. Under the revised wording, only an active, ongoing blacklisting would affect a bidder’s eligibility, effectively removing past disciplinary actions from consideration.
Sartak further alleged that the turnover requirement was calibrated in a manner that excluded smaller competitors while allowing Coempt to remain eligible.
Under the original tender conditions, bidders were required to demonstrate an average annual turnover of at least ₹50 crore from digital examination and evaluation services during the three preceding financial years, from FY2022-23 to FY2024-25.
Among the contenders, TCS comfortably exceeded the benchmark, while Rankguru Technology Services reported a three-year average turnover of ₹117.56 crore. Coempt Edutek, however, qualified by a relatively slim margin, recording an average turnover of ₹50.86 crore—just 1.7 percent above the prescribed threshold.
Sartak also pointed out that Shree Info Solution had earlier requested CBSE to lower the minimum turnover requirement from ₹50 crore to ₹30 crore, arguing that a reduced threshold would foster greater competition among bidders. CBSE declined the request and retained the original eligibility criterion.
According to Sartak, the decision to maintain the ₹50-crore benchmark had the effect of limiting the pool of eligible participants while still allowing Coempt to satisfy the qualification requirements.
Sartak also pointed to a series of technical and eligibility changes that he claims collectively made the tender more accessible to Coempt Eduteck.
One of the most notable changes, according to him, involved software quality certification. Software engineering maturity is commonly assessed using the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), which ranks organizations on a scale from Level 1 to Level 5. While the earlier tender reportedly required bidders to hold a CMMI Level 5 certification, the revised tender lowered the requirement to Level 3. Sartak noted that Coempt Eduteck’s reported certification level is CMMI Level 3.
He further alleged that the cooling-off period for engaging retired CBSE officials was reduced from two years to one year, a change that, in his view, increased the potential for recently retired officials to participate in activities connected to the Board’s operations and procurement ecosystem.
Sartak also highlighted changes to the experience criteria. Under the second tender, bidders were required to demonstrate experience in executing similar projects involving at least five lakh students per project. In the revised tender, however, the student-count requirement was removed and replaced with a criterion based on the cumulative volume of answer books processed.
According to Sartak, this shift favored vendors with multiple smaller university contracts rather than organizations with experience handling large-scale centralized examination systems. He argued that Coempt Eduteck, whose portfolio includes several smaller and fragmented university engagements, stood to benefit from the revised qualification framework, while larger competitors such as TCS lost a key advantage.
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Changes were also made to infrastructure requirements. The earlier tender required bidders to own and operate their own Data Center and Disaster Recovery Center. In the revised version, the ownership requirement was removed, with the only stipulation being that the hosting infrastructure must be empanelled by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
Sartak contended that this modification benefited Coempt Eduteck because its services are hosted on AWS infrastructure, which is MeitY-empanelled. By contrast, he argued, the change offered little practical advantage to firms such as TCS that already maintain their own data-center facilities.
Similarly, he noted that the earlier tender required service providers to ensure local server deployment capabilities, a provision that was subsequently removed. Since Coempt’s OnMark platform is hosted on Microsoft Azure, Sartak claimed that the deletion of this requirement further aligned the eligibility criteria with Coempt’s existing operating model.
Another change involved software ownership and accessibility requirements. The previous tender reportedly required bidders to own, or possess enforceable rights over, the complete source code of the software platform being offered. According to Sartak, this requirement was removed in the revised tender.
He alleged that Coempt’s OnMark platform relies on Microsoft’s proprietary Internet Information Services (IIS) ecosystem and argued that the revised rules effectively accommodated proprietary platforms that may not have satisfied the earlier criteria. He claimed, “CBSE allowed proprietary platforms. Coempt’s OnMark was based on a proprietary platform. CBSE rewrote the rules for Coempt’s accessibility.”
Sartak further pointed to changes in the penalty framework. Under the earlier tender, penalties were imposed for operational errors such as incorrect scanning, merged pages, or unscanned answer books. The revised tender, however, reportedly shifted the focus toward delays, prescribing a penalty of ₹50,000 per day for late delivery.
According to Sartak, this change reflected a broader shift in priorities. He argued that the revised framework emphasized processing volume and adherence to timelines while placing comparatively less emphasis on accuracy and quality-control failures that directly affect the integrity of evaluation records.
Responding to the student’s post, Rahul Gandhi demanded an independent judicial inquiry.
LoP Gandhi wrote: “17-year-old Sarthak Sidhant has exposed how CBSE manipulated its own selection process to benefit COEMPT, using CBSE’s own documents. The details in his blog reveal how CBSE changed the RFP to unduly benefit COEMPT, at the cost of TCS. He has revealed the hollowness of Dharmendra Pradhan ji’s denials. The PM remains silent, as usual. The question is simple: who are they protecting, and why?”
17-year-old Sarthak Sidhant has exposed how CBSE manipulated its own selection process to benefit COEMPT, using CBSE’s own documents.
The details in his blog reveal how CBSE changed the RFP to unduly benefit COEMPT, at the cost of TCS.
He has revealed the hollowness of… https://t.co/g7YSYIxDrh
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 29, 2026
Meanwhile, former Telangana Minister and BRS working president KTR took to X, to clarify that “when the the Globarena fiasco happened, the BRS government took appropriate action. Based on a three member committee’s findings, the concerned officials were sacked, and Globarena was taken to the court.”
He added, “Unfortunately, the CBSE board ignored this history. I understand that the board changed rules repeatedly just to clearly accommodate a very incompetent organization. The Union Government must answer for this mess. The Education Minister must answer.”
Firstly, my heartfelt appreciation to all the Class 12 students who are fiercely fighting back against the CBSE marks fiasco. The way you are holding people in power accountable is truly inspiring.
It is unfortunate, however, that Globarena, the same company that botched the…
— KTR (@KTRBRS) May 30, 2026
Also Read: Student branded ‘Pakistani’ after alleging answer-sheet mix-up
