'Blacklist' Vendor Clause From CBSE Tender Removed In 2025, Documents Show

The Central Board of Secondary Education's (CBSE) tender in 2025 for handling the scanning and digital evaluation of answer sheets included a condition that the vendor can be blacklisted if it violated rules. This tender with a strong enforcement mechanism came out on August 28, 2025.

Less than a month later, on September 20, the CBSE issued a corrigendum that removed the mention of blacklisting from the tender. It retained conditions for imposing financial penalties, forfeiting deposits and ending the contract, but no longer mentioned blacklisting. It also didn't state the reason behind the removal of the clause to blacklist any vendor.

NDTV accessed the 132-page tender document from 2025.

The CBSE told NDTV that the original tender indeed included a clause to blacklist the vendor. The third-party service provider, in this case TCS, however, asked for the condition to be removed, the CBSE said.

The education board said that even after the corrigendum, it still has the authority to blacklist a vendor anytime if serious violations are found.

The original tender from August 2025 included a clause that allowed a CBSE committee to issue notice to a vendor for forfeiture of performance bank guarantee, blacklisting and termination of contract in cases of serious lapses. The tender stated repeat violations would lead to forfeiture of the security deposit as well.

Under the final contract, there's a clause to charge a fine of Rs 1 lakh for every 15-minute delay in resolving critical issues flagged by the CBSE. There's another Rs 1 lakh penalty for every 60-minute delay in giving a root-cause analysis and corrective action plan.

The issue has come under scrutiny due to concerns about the on-screen marking (OSM) system including allegations of information exposure, security vulnerabilities and operational lapses.

The CBSE subsequently on December 5, 2025 gave the contract for its digital scanning and OSM system to Coempt Edu Teck Pvt Ltd, a company based in Telangana's Hyderabad.

The education board has now acknowledged security "vulnerabilities" on Onmark, the website used by teachers to evaluate scanned answer sheets of Class 12 students. The admission came after some ethical hackers shared evidence of the vulnerabilities on social media. The vulnerabilities have been identified in at least nine domains linked to CBSE's OSM system.