The number of toppers in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) came down to 17 from 61 after the National Testing Agency (NTA) brought out the re-calculated results based on the correct answer as directed by the Supreme Court in its final verdict. Mridul M Anand from the OBC-NCL category emerged as the all-India topper replacing Ved S Shende in the revised merit list released by the agency on Friday evening.
According to the revised list, Anand from Delhi bagged the top position with an All-India Rank (AIR) 1, after previously being in third position. He has replaced Shende from Maharashtra, who was in the top position in the original results announced by the NTA on June 4. Shende’s revised score is now 715 with a NEET rank of 25.
Ayush Naugraiya from the General-EWS category from Uttar Pradesh (UP) is in second position, after previously being number four, while Mazin Mansoor from the OBC-NCL category, hailing from Bihar, is in the third position, up from being number five in the previously declared results.
Also, Prachita, the female all-India topper from Rajasthan, climbed up to the fourth position, as per the revised list declared on July 26, from the 11th position in the previous result.
The list of the top 100 candidates as per the revised result shows that 17 of them scored 720/720 marks, six scored 716, while the rest got 715 marks.
Of the 17 toppers, four are from Rajasthan, three from Maharashtra, two each from Delhi and UP, and one each from Bihar, Punjab, West Bengal (WB), Tamil Nadu (TN), Kerala and Chandigarh, as per the revised result.
The re-calculated results also brought down slightly the range of NEET-UG cut-off marks for all categories. It now stands at 720-162 for the general category from 720-164 in the previously announced result. For the SC/ST/OBC categories, the cut-off marks range has come down to 161-127 as opposed to 163-129, previously.
According to the revised result, the number of candidates qualifying in the general category came down to 11,65,334 from 11,65,904 in the previously declared result. However, the number of those qualifying in the OBC and SC categories instead went up to 1,00,876 from 1,00,769, and 34,420 from 34,326, respectively.
The qualifying criterion for the general category is scoring in the 50th percentile while for OBC/SC/ST it is 40th percentile.
The NTA declared the revised results to NEET-UG, which was conducted on May 5, following a Supreme Court order of July 24 wherein it directed the agency to declare re-calculated results based on the observations made by the apex court with respect to a correct answer to a physics question. The correct answer is based on a report by IIT-Delhi submitted in the court.
On July 24, the SC accepted the IIT-Delhi report and asked the NTA to accordingly “re-tally” the NEET-UG results on the basis that option no. 4 represents the “only correct answer to the question”. The confusion on the correct answer had made the NTA allot 4 marks to all candidates who ticked both options as the right answer, which resulted in 44 toppers. Now, all these 44 candidates, who had scored 720/720 lost 5 marks (4 for wrong answer and 1 for negative marking), pulling them down on the tally.
“Initially, answer key by NTA showed second option to a question was correct answer, however after representations were taken into account…both option 2 and 4 was taken to be correct answers. IIT Delhi director-led three-member committee has submitted a report stating option 4 was the correct one. The NTA will re-tally the results based on the correct answer as per IIT-Delhi report,” DY Chandrachud, Chief Justice of India (CJI), had stated in the order on June 24 when the SC ruled that there will be no re-test for NEET-UG.
The number of toppers, those scoring perfect 720/720 marks, was originally 67 in the results announced on June 4. However, this number came down to 61 after a re-test of the medical entrance exam was conducted for 1,563 candidates, who were compensated for time lost at the exam centres for various administrative reasons such as the distribution of a wrong set of question papers. These 1,563 candidates were from seven centres across the country including six of the 67 toppers, who were from one exam centre in Jhajjar (Hardayal Public School). Five of these six toppers opted for the re-test, but none could score 720/720, thus reducing the number of perfect scorers to 61.
NEET-UG 2024 saw record-high registrations, with over 24 lakh students, the highest ever. Among them were 10 lakh male students and over 13 lakh female students.
