CBSE Error Cost Samaira Seat in US: 26 Marks Missing; Her Score Read 72. It Should Have Read 98

CBSE Error: Samaira Mittal of Ludhiana had admission at UC San Diego. A CBSE OSM error — 26 chemistry marks simply not counted — triggered two Singapore rejections, a High Court petition, and a race against a postal deadline.

Arvind Chhabra

Chandigarh, June 26

On the morning of May 29, Samaira Mittal opened her Chemistry answer sheet on the CBSE portal and saw something that made no sense. Her paper had been checked by two evaluators — a human examiner who had written marks in his own handwriting, and CBSE’s On-Screen Marking (OSM) software. But when she looked at her final score, only the computer’s marks were there. The examiner’s 26 marks — clearly visible on the sheet — had simply vanished from the total.

Her Chemistry score read 72. It should have read 98.

That 26-mark gap was about to cost her one of the most coveted undergraduate seats available to an Indian student — at the University of California, San Diego.

Samaira, 18, a student of Sacred Heart Convent School, Ludhiana, had been one of the most ambitious young applicants in her batch. She had applied to four universities in Singapore and one in the United States. UC San Diego had already issued her an I-20 form — the US government document that allows a foreign student to apply for an F-1 visa and begin studies.

Her programme: a Bachelor’s in Information Technology, starting September 24, 2026. The I-20 listed her family’s financial commitment: $82,662 for nine months.

There was one condition. She had to submit her final CBSE marksheet to UC San Diego by July 1, 2026 — and given that the documents had to travel by postal mail from India to La Jolla, California, they needed to be dispatched by June 23 or 24 at the latest. The university had emailed her twice reminding her of the deadline — once on June 6, and again on June 16.

She had exactly one week to fix CBSE’s mistake.

CBSE OSM Row: Punjab Student Moves HC After Only Half Her Chemistry Marks Are Counted

CBSE Error: What the Answer Sheet Showed

When Samaira applied for copies of all five answer sheets on May 20, paying the requisite fee, four were uploaded promptly. Chemistry — the subject where she had scored the lowest — was missing. Her father Gaurav Mittal wrote a representation to the CBSE Regional Office in Ludhiana on May 27. The sheet was finally uploaded two days later.

What she found on it was damning. The CBSE system’s own question-wise marks summary listed her total as 42. But a portion of the paper — questions 18a, 26b, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 and others — carried the notation “NA*”, with a footnote: “*marked marks are omitted for totalling.”

These were the questions that had been physically checked by a human examiner. His marks — 26 in total — were written by hand on the sheet but had been omitted from the system’s calculation.

Theory marks counted: 42. Theory marks that should have been counted: 68. Chemistry total on her marksheet: 72 (42 theory + 30 practicals). Chemistry total she had actually earned: 98 (68 theory + 30 practicals).

Her overall result: 90.2%. What it should have been: 95.4%.

The difference between 90.2% and 95.4% was the difference between rejection and admission at four of the five universities she had applied to.

Two Singapore Universities Said No

CBSE Error: Singapore Management University wrote to Samaira on June 15. “The SMU Admissions Committee has completed our evaluation of this year’s applications, and we are genuinely sorry to share that we will not be able to offer you a place in SMU this year.” The letter was signed by Ms Linette Lim, Director, Office of Admissions and Financial Assistance.

Two days earlier, on May 21, the Singapore Institute of Technology had also turned her down. “We have reviewed your application carefully and holistically, but regret to inform you that your application to SIT is not successful,” wrote Ms Veronica Wong, Director, Admissions and Financial Aid.

Two more Singapore universities — Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the National University of Singapore (NUS) — had not yet decided.

CBSE Did Not Move

CBSE Error: Samaira had not waited passively. She and her father had visited the CBSE Regional Office in Ludhiana multiple times after discovering the error. Each time, they were told the matter would be resolved “in a day or so.” More than three weeks passed. Nothing was corrected.

On June 2, she filed a formal verification application with CBSE for the Chemistry paper, paying ₹100. On the same day, she also applied for revaluation of five questions across Mathematics and Informatics Practices. She emailed CBSE’s Ludhiana regional office on June 16, marking it “EXTREMELY URGENT,” attaching the answer sheet, the revaluation receipt, and letters from UC San Diego. CBSE did not respond in time.

With the postal deadline for UC San Diego now just days away, she filed a writ petition before the Punjab and Haryana High Court on June 19. Her advocate Atul Goyal placed the full chain of documents before the court.

Court Intervenes, CBSE Acts

The High Court acted swiftly. It directed CBSE to re-check the paper and file a status report. Within days, CBSE re-checked Samaira’s Chemistry answer sheet and uploaded a fresh result on its portal. The 26 missing marks were added. Her score crossed 96 per cent.

When the matter came before the high court this week, the court noted that since CBSE had already corrected the marks and uploaded the fresh result, the prayer in the original petition had become infructuous. The petition was disposed of.

But Samaira’s fight is not entirely over.

One More Battle: The Certificate

What she still needs — and does not yet have — is a formal certificate from CBSE acknowledging that an error occurred. Without that document, she cannot explain to UC San Diego why her marksheet now shows a different score from the one submitted earlier. The university needs official paperwork, not just a corrected DigiLocker entry.

Since this specific prayer was not part of her original petition, the High Court directed her to file a fresh representation with CBSE within seven days, seeking the certificate. CBSE has been directed to decide that representation within 15 days by passing a speaking order.

A Number That Speaks for Itself

Chemistry theory in CBSE Class 12 is marked out of 70. Samaira was awarded 42. She should have received 68. The 26 marks that went missing amounted to more than a third of the entire theory paper. This was not a rounding error. It was not a single question misjudged. It was an entire portion of her answer sheet — evaluated by a human examiner, marks written in hand, clearly visible — that the system simply did not count.

Her case is among the starkest illustrations yet of what has gone wrong with CBSE’s first full-scale rollout of On-Screen Marking for all Class 12 board examinations this year — a system introduced via a February 9 circular despite the board’s own governing body advising in June 2025 that OSM be limited to small-volume subjects as a trial.

The board went full-scale. For Samaira Mittal of Ludhiana, the cost has been rejection letters from two Singapore universities, a race against a transatlantic postal deadline, and a High Court petition — all because a system failed to add two numbers together.

READ: CBSE OSM Row: Punjab Student Moves HC After Only Half Her Chemistry Marks Are Counted

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