Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday accepted responsibility for discrepancies linked to the Central Board of Secondary Education’s On-Screen Marking (OSM) evaluation system and assured strict action against those found deliberately responsible for irregularities affecting students.Pradhan chaired a review meeting with CBSE officials at the board’s headquarters to address technical and payment-related concerns raised by students during the re-evaluation and verification process.Speaking after the meeting, the minister said the board was actively working to resolve issues related to evaluation and re-evaluation of Class 12 examinations. He noted that 17 lakh students appeared for the examination and that 98 lakh answer sheets, comprising around 40 crore scanned pages, were processed.He said this was the first instance of CBSE using the OSM evaluation system, which he described as a student-focused and globally accepted mechanism intended to enhance transparency. He added that certain discrepancies had emerged during its implementation.Pradhan said he took responsibility for the issues and assured that solutions would be implemented. He stated that no student query would remain unresolved.He also said experts from IIT Kanpur and IIT Madras had been engaged to support the CBSE technical team in reviewing the system and addressing software-related concerns.Following discussions with the Finance Ministry, Pradhan said payment gateways of four public sector banks, State Bank of India, Indian Bank, Bank of Baroda and Canara Bank, had been integrated with the CBSE portal to streamline the process for students.The minister said action would be taken against anyone found responsible for intentional irregularities, irrespective of their position within or outside CBSE. He also expressed regret over the issues faced by students.Pradhan urged political parties not to politicise the matter and said the primary focus should be on reducing stress for students.Pradhan responds to Rahul Gandhi's allegationResponding to allegations made by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi regarding alleged mass tampering in CBSE results, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the board had already issued a response and that procurement procedures were carried out in accordance with government policies.He further said that if any irregularities were found, accountability would be fixed. However, he criticised Gandhi’s remarks, stating that the Congress leader appeared to be reacting out of frustration from repeated electoral defeats and had consistently opposed initiatives such as Rafale, EVMs and Digital India.Earlier, Gandhi on Wednesday alleged that CBSE examination results were affected by “massive irregularities” and called for an independent judicial inquiry along with the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe what he described as the “entire scam”. He also claimed that a company with a questionable track record in Telangana had been awarded the contract for digital evaluation of answer sheets by CBSE.Meanwhile, CBSE clarified that the live evaluation system had not been compromised. It said the URL circulating on social media was part of a testing platform containing sample data and was not linked to the operational On-Screen Marking (OSM) portal.