The Centre announced on Tuesday the immediate removal of CBSE chairperson Rahul Singh and secretary Himanshu Gupta from their posts. Singh has been reassigned as additional secretary in the department of agriculture and farmers welfare, while Gupta was sent back to his parent cadre in the ministry of home affairs on administrative grounds with extended cooling off. Lokhande Prashant Sitaram, additional secretary in the ministry of home affairs, has been appointed as the new CBSE chairperson, and Varun Bhardwaj, director in the department of higher education, has taken over as the new CBSE secretary.

The government has constituted a one-member committee to investigate the procurement of services for the on-screen marking system. The committee will be headed by S Radha Chauhan, chairperson of the Capacity Building Commission, and has been given one month to submit its report to the department of personnel and training. The decision indicates the matter has reached the highest levels of government scrutiny, with the memorandum marked to the principal secretary to the Prime Minister.

The removals follow weeks of criticism over the rollout of the on-screen marking based evaluation system, which triggered numerous complaints from students and parents regarding alleged answer-sheet mix-ups, portal glitches, payment failures, and delays in verification and re-evaluation procedures. Additionally, cybersecurity agencies, including the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, are monitoring alleged cyberattacks and security threats targeting CBSE's evaluation portal, with officials warning of strict penal action against those found involved.