The Central Information Commission (CIC) has instructed the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to furnish copies of answer scripts requested under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, charging only the photocopying fees specified under the RTI Rules, 2012.
The commission has further recommended that CBSE revise its May 19, 2025 circular, which currently bars candidates who obtain their answer sheets through the RTI Act from later applying for verification or revaluation. The CIC noted that such a restriction runs counter to the underlying purpose of the transparency legislation.
This issue reached the commission after a Class 10 CBSE student filed an RTI application requesting photocopies of his answer sheets. The student pointed to the steep cost of the board’s standard re-evaluation process and also flagged concerns regarding the difficulty level of the Class 10 Mathematics Standard Set 3 paper, along with issues related to how the moderation policy was applied and the marks deducted.
