The Delhi High Court on Friday refused to pass any urgent directions to reopen CBSE’s verification portal for re-evaluation of Class XII answer sheets, saying that doing so could delay the finalisation of results and affect undergraduate admissions.A vacation bench of Justice Neena Bansal Krishna and Justice Madhu Jain was hearing a plea filed by the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), which alleged large scale irregularities and deficiencies in CBSE’s newly introduced On-Screen Marking (OSM) system.During the hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the court that reopening the process would affect 17.8 lakh students who appeared in the exams. He said the verification and re-evaluation process had already been conducted within the notified timelines and was underway.“First step was CBSE opened the window for obtaining scanned copies of answer sheets from 19 May to 25 May. More than 4 lakh applied and total answer sheets 11 lakh plus were demanded. All were given by CBSE. The portal was opened from June 2 to June 6 and it was extended for a day- June 7. 1.67 lakh students applied for reevaluation. 3.8 lakh answer sheets were given to CBSE for reevaluation. This system has operated. Those who wanted to apply applied, got answer sheets. And those who were not satisfied after looking at the answer sheets they requested evaluation and the process is underway,” Mehta said.The court accepted the concern that extending the process could have wider consequences.“For you it is one week. But the whole process gets delayed by a month. You are saying let me take the step. Then of course 10 steps further are to be taken. It is not the question of step 1 but three other steps.… We are not giving any further directions. We will post this before the roster bench,” the bench observed.The judges also remarked that individual students could pursue their grievances separately. Earlier in the hearing, the bench had said, “Let individual students approach. They will take care,” adding that granting the prayer could delay final results.The PIL, filed through NSUI president Vinod Jhakhar, seeks an independent inquiry into alleged technical failures and grievance-handling problems in the OSM system. The petition says the digital evaluation method has led to complaints from students, parents and teachers about blurred scans, missing pages, incomplete uploads, mismatch of answer sheets, unexpectedly low marks and the absence of a meaningful mechanism for manual verification.The plea argues that the large number of students seeking scanned copies immediately after the results reflects an “extraordinary level of concern and lack of confidence amongst students regarding the process.” It also claims the existing grievance mechanism is inadequate because students have limited digital remedies and no meaningful process for manual verification or independent rechecking of disputed answer books.It sought reopening of the verification portal for one month, manual rechecking and physical verification in disputed cases, direct oversight by the Union government, and an independent inquiry into the alleged irregularities.