The ethical dilemma: who is accountable when technology fails?
The controversy presents a classic governance dilemma. Public institutions increasingly rely on digital systems to improve efficiency and reduce human error. Yet citizens expect fairness, transparency, and accountability irrespective of whether a decision is made by a person or through technology. When evaluation errors affect students’ academic futures, who bears responsibility? Can accountability be attributed to a software glitch, or does it ultimately rest with the institution that designed, deployed, and supervised the system?
For affected students, the distinction between a technical failure and an administrative lapse offers little consolation. What matters is that a system entrusted with evaluating them has failed to deliver the fairness and certainty it promised.
Technology as a tool, not a substitute for responsibility
A key lesson for UPSC aspirants is that technology itself is neither ethical nor unethical. It is a tool whose impact depends upon how it is designed, implemented, monitored, and corrected. Digital governance can undoubtedly improve efficiency, consistency, and service delivery. However, technology cannot replace ethical responsibility. Human judgment remains indispensable in ensuring fairness, addressing grievances, and correcting unintended consequences.
Public institutions cannot treat technology as a shield behind which responsibility disappears. When technological systems fail, accountability must remain visible, accessible, and responsive.
Citizens interact with institutions, not algorithms. Therefore, institutions must remain answerable for the outcomes produced by the systems they deploy.
Human consequences and the need for empathy
Ethical governance is not merely about correcting technical errors. It is also about recognising their human consequences.
For many students, examinations represent years of effort, sacrifice, and aspiration. Academic outcomes often carry expectations from families, peers, educational institutions, and the students themselves. Errors in evaluation can therefore create not only uncertainty regarding results but also significant emotional and psychological distress.
This is where emotional intelligence, an important component of the UPSC Ethics syllabus, becomes relevant. Institutions must recognise the anxieties experienced by affected citizens and respond with empathy, timely communication, and effective grievance redressal mechanisms.
A technically correct response may not always be an ethically adequate one. Ethical governance requires institutions to acknowledge distress, communicate transparently, and reassure citizens that corrective action is being taken.
Sarthak Sidhant, one of the students affected by the CBSE’s ‘On-Screen Marking’ (OSM) system, arrived at the Parliament House Annexe. (Image: ANI)
For many aspirants, an examination result is not merely a number on a scorecard. It often represents years of disciplined preparation, personal sacrifice, financial investment, and the hopes invested by families. Consequently, errors in evaluation affect not only academic outcomes but also emotional well-being and confidence in public institutions. Ethical governance requires institutions to recognise these realities while designing corrective responses.
Citizen-centric governance and public trust
The episode also highlights an important principle of citizen-centric governance: efficiency is important, but fairness is indispensable. A system may be technologically sophisticated, yet if it fails to protect the interests of citizens, it falls short of its larger public purpose. Within a welfare state, institutions are judged not merely by their intentions but by the outcomes they produce.
Incidents involving examination irregularities, procedural lapses, or technological failures can gradually weaken public trust—the invisible bond that sustains democratic institutions. When citizens begin to doubt the fairness of public systems, confidence in governance itself may suffer.
Therefore, transparency, accountability, and responsiveness are not optional administrative virtues; they are essential conditions for institutional legitimacy.
Within a welfare state, this responsibility assumes even greater significance. Public institutions are expected not merely to administer rules and procedures but also to safeguard the interests and dignity of citizens. Accountability, therefore, cannot disappear behind software, technical explanations, or bureaucratic processes. Institutions must remain answerable for the outcomes produced by the systems they create and deploy.
Ethical frameworks for analysis
Several ethical and administrative frameworks help us understand the broader significance of such incidents.
Max Weber’s concept of rational-legal authority emphasises that public institutions derive legitimacy from predictable, rule-based, and rational procedures. When systems fail to deliver fairness, the legitimacy of those institutions may come under scrutiny.
The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) identified accountability, transparency, responsiveness, and citizen-centricity as essential pillars of ethical governance. The effectiveness of any public institution depends not only on efficiency but also on its willingness to remain answerable to citizens.
The controversy also reflects the importance of emotional intelligence in public administration. Administrators must be capable of understanding and responding to the concerns and emotions of citizens affected by institutional decisions.
Lessons for future civil servants
For future civil servants, the episode offers an important reminder that governance is ultimately about people, not processes.
Rules, technology, and procedures are essential instruments of administration, but public trust depends upon how institutions respond when things go wrong. Ethical leadership requires accountability, transparency, empathy, and the courage to acknowledge mistakes.
The CBSE controversy is ultimately not a story about software alone. It is a reminder that technology cannot replace ethical responsibility. Digital systems may improve efficiency, but public institutions derive their legitimacy from fairness, accountability, and responsiveness.
For administrators and future civil servants alike, the lesson is clear: when technology fails, responsibility cannot disappear behind algorithms or procedures. Preserving public trust requires institutions to acknowledge errors, act transparently, and place citizens at the centre of every corrective measure.
As Socrates observed, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” The same principle applies to public institutions. Their credibility depends upon a willingness to introspect, acknowledge shortcomings, and undertake corrective action.
In the digital age, ethical governance remains fundamentally a human responsibility.
POST READ QUESTION
Can efficiency be allowed to override fairness in public administration? Discuss with examples.
(The writer is the author of ‘Being Good’, ‘Aaiye, Insaan Banaen’, ‘Kyon’ and ‘Ethikos: Stories Searching Happiness’. He teaches courses on and offers training in ethics, values and behaviour. He has been the expert/consultant to UPSC, SAARC countries, Civil services Academy, National Centre for Good Governance, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Competition Commission of India (CCI), National Judicial Academy, etc. He has PhD in two disciplines and has been a Doctoral Fellow in Gandhian Studies from ICSSR. His second PhD is from IIT Delhi on Ethical Decision Making among Indian Bureaucrats. He writes for the UPSC Ethics Simplified (concepts and caselets) fortnightly.)
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"In the digital age, ethical governance remains fundamentally a human responsibility", writes Nanditesh Nilay. (Express photo) 
Sarthak Sidhant, one of the students affected by the CBSE’s ‘On-Screen Marking’ (OSM) system, arrived at the Parliament House Annexe. (Image: ANI)
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