New Delhi: The Centre has appointed Mandeep K Bhandari, a 2001-batch IAS officer of the AGMUT cadre, as chairperson of the Central Board of Secondary Education. The post has been temporarily upgraded so that he holds it in the rank and pay of Additional Secretary. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet approved the appointment and the Department of Personnel and Training issued the order on September 25.
Bhandari takes charge after 85 days of additional charge at the board and becomes the third person to head CBSE in less than four months. His appointment comes as the board continues to deal with the fallout of its first nationwide use of the On-Screen Marking system for Class XII answer books.
Bhandari succeeds Lokhande Prashant Sitaram, a batchmate from the same cadre. Sitaram was appointed CBSE chairperson on June 2, replacing Rahul Singh, but was appointed Additional Secretary in the Home Ministry a month later while continuing to hold additional charge of CBSE. Bhandari's appointment brings that period of interim leadership to an end.
The disruption in leadership followed the controversy over CBSE's introduction of OSM for the 2026 Class XII examinations. Under the system, physical answer books were scanned and evaluated digitally. CBSE had described the move as an effort to improve efficiency and transparency. But after the Class XII results were declared on May 13, students reported blurred scans, missing pages and instances in which the answer book displayed on the portal allegedly did not belong to them. The complaints led to protests and wider questions over the implementation of the system.
The scrutiny soon extended to the procurement of the OSM service. Hyderabad-based Coempt Edu Teck was selected through a tender floated in August 2025 after two earlier attempts had failed. Coempt and Tata Consultancy Services cleared the technical evaluation, with Coempt scoring 91 marks against TCS's 89, before emerging as the successful bidder after the financial evaluation. CBSE has maintained that the procurement followed government rules.
The controversy widened after CBSE's post-result services portal opened on June 2. The board said it faced coordinated cyberattacks and filed a complaint with the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations unit of Delhi Police on June 5. CBSE said there had been no data breach. The issue also reached the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports.
The government's response came on June 2, when Rahul Singh was moved to the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare as Additional Secretary and Secretary Himanshu Gupta was prematurely repatriated to his parent cadre on administrative grounds. Gupta's repatriation carried an "extended cooling off" condition, making him ineligible for another central deputation until after December 12, 2030. Varun Bhardwaj, a 2008-batch Indian Information Service officer, was appointed CBSE secretary.
The same day, the Cabinet Secretariat constituted a one-member committee headed by S Radha Chauhan, Chairperson of the Capacity Building Commission, to inquire into the procurement of OSM services. The committee was asked to submit its report to DoPT within a month. No findings from the inquiry have been made public so far.
CBSE also moved OSM data and records from the vendor's servers to CBSE-controlled infrastructure. Coempt was initially retained for scanning during re-evaluation, but the board subsequently discontinued its services for the re-evaluation exercise on June 8.
Bhandari brings an administrative rather than an examination background. An MBBS graduate, he served with the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board and was Private Secretary to the Union HRD Minister in 2018 before becoming Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry. Since March 2023, he has been Principal Secretary to the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir and has also held additional charge as CEO of the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board.
His immediate challenge comes as the 2026-27 examination cycle is already under way. Schools are submitting their List of Candidates for the Class X and XII examinations between September 24 and October 21.
For Bhandari, the task will be to bring greater stability to CBSE while the questions raised by the OSM rollout remain unresolved. The leadership has changed twice since the controversy broke. The next phase will show how the board responds on digital evaluation, examination processes and the findings, if any, of the procurement inquiry.
BI Bureau
