Ranit Kr. Singh , New Delhi - The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has issued an official apology and corrected the Physics result of a Delhi student, Vedant Shrivastava, after an answer sheet mix-up snowballed into a major social media controversy. Shrivastava, 17, received an unexpectedly low score and requested a scanned copy of his evaluated script, only to discover that the uploaded document featured handwriting entirely different from his own. When he shared side-by-side comparison screenshots on the social media platform X to highlight the error, his post went viral, attracting over 3.2 million views and a barrage of aggressive online trolling.

The student became the target of intense online abuse and was labeled "anti-national" and "Pakistani" by trolls, including a prominent journalist who later apologized. The online attack was triggered because his newly created X profile defaulted to a broad regional location tag of "South Asia." Despite the intense backlash, Shrivastava received widespread public backing, including support from political leaders like Opposition Leader Rahul Gandhi and active youth-led groups. Following the widespread outcry, the CBSE joint secretary officially acknowledged the administrative mismatch, emailed the student his actual answer script, and initiated an immediate update to his final board marks.

This prominent mix-up has intensified the ongoing scrutiny of the CBSE’s newly implemented digital On-Screen Marking (OSM) evaluation system, which has faced a flood of complaints regarding technical glitches, blurred scans, and misallocated answer sheets. While the board initially defended the digital assessment portal as a tool for speed and transparency, officials have since acknowledged structural capacity challenges during peak demand periods. This incident underscores how systemic technical failures in public education can inadvertently expose vulnerable students to severe online harassment before institutional corrections are made.