Rajaneesh P from Tamil Nadu and Sreenand Sharmil from Kerala are amongst the toppers after the NTA reduced the number of toppers from 67 to 17 in its final result.
Published Jul 27, 2024 | 10:52 AM ⚊ Updated Jul 27, 2024 | 10:52 AM
NEET exam. (Creative Commons)
The NTA (National Testing Agency), on Friday, 26 July, declared the final re-revised results of the controversy-ridden National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate entrance exam(NEET-UG).
In the re-revised results, the number of candidates sharing the top rank has reduced from 61 to 17, while thousands of others have seen their marks and rankings change significantly.
Among the South Indian states, one candidate each from Tamil Nadu— Rajaneesh P, and Kerala— Sreenand Sharmil, are among the 17 toppers in the list. In the final result, the number of qualifying candidates and the cut-off has also seen a marginal dip.
The “re-revised” results have been released three days after the Supreme Court rejected multiple petitions demanding a NEET-UG 2024 retest because of alleged paper leaks and other malpractices.
The top court had, however, asked the NTA to revise the merit list in light of a controversial physics question, which had two possible answers and the correct option was suggested by a three-member expert panel from IIT Delhi set up by the Supreme Court.
It led to a complete reworking of NEET ranks and scores for all 23 lakh students. The scores of at least 4,20,000 students, including 44 of the 61 who achieved a perfect 720, decreased by five points with the court invalidating the disputed marks they got for the Physics question.
However, the exact impact on their rankings is not immediately clear.
The exams were held on 5 May and the results were announced on 4 June. Doubts about the sanctity of the exam arose when a total of 67 students scored a perfect 720, unprecedented in the NTA’s history.
The number of candidates sharing the top rank came down to 61 after the NTA announced the revised results on 1 July after withdrawing grace marks awarded to six candidates to make up for the loss of time at some centres.
With the re-revised results announced on Friday, there was a decrease in the number of toppers, the qualifying cutoffs and the number of qualified candidates.
Seventeen candidates have retained the perfect 720 marks and were declared the toppers, followed by six who scored 716, and 77 with 715 marks, which forms the cohort of top 100 candidates.
The percentage of female toppers in the revised results increased from 16 percent to 23 percent as there are four candidates in the top 17. The percentage of female candidates among top 100 is 22 percent.
There are four candidates from Rajasthan, three from Maharashtra, two each from Delhi and Uttar Pradesh who are among the toppers.
The other six are each from Kerala, Chandigarh, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Bihar and West Bengal.
The total number of qualified candidates stands at 13,15,853, down by 415 candidates. There are 15 states/Union Territories which registered an increase in the total number of qualified candidates. These include Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Uttarakhand, and West Bengal, among others.
Even though the number of qualifiers decreased marginally, with over 1.65 lakh candidates, UP has the highest numbers, followed by Maharashtra (1.42 lakh) and Rajasthan (1.21 lakh).
The other two states with over 85,000 qualifiers are Karnataka (88,887) and Kerala (86,713). Amongst state-wise toppers, Kasturi Sandeep Chowdary from Andhra Pradesh got 44 ranks scoring 715 marks, while Sam Shreyas Joseph from Karnataka got 64 rank after scoring 715 marks, and Anuran Ghosh from Telangana got 137 rank.
The revision of the results also brought down the qualifying cutoffs— for the unreserved and economically weaker section the new cutoff range is 720-162, down from 164, while for the OBC, SC, and ST it is 161-127.
Category-wise the number of qualifiers decreased for unreserved, EWS, and OBC, while it increased for SC and ST.
In a major setback to unsuccessful aspirants of NEET-UG 2024, the Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed the pleas seeking cancellation and re-test of the controversy-ridden exam, holding that there was no evidence on record to conclude that it was “vitiated” on account of “systemic breach” of its sanctity.
The verdict came as a shot in the arm for the embattled NDA government and the National Testing Agency, which were facing strong criticism and protests, on the streets and in Parliament, over alleged large-scale malpractices like question paper leak, fraud and impersonation in the prestigious test held on 5 May.
The CBI is probing alleged irregularities in NEET-UG 2024 and has lodged six FIRs.
The NEET-UG is conducted by the National Testing Agency for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions.
As per Section 14 of the National Medical Commission Act, 2019, the NEET (UG) has to be conducted as a common and uniform National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test [(NEET (UG)] for admission to undergraduate medical education in all medical institutions.
Similarly, as per Section 14 of the National Commission for Indian System of Medicine Act, 2020, there shall be a uniform NEET (UG) for admission to undergraduate courses in each of the disciplines i.e. BAMS, BUMS, and BSMS courses of the Indian System of Medicine in all Medical Institutions governed under this Act. NEET (UG) shall also be applicable to admission to the BHMS course under the National Commission for Homeopathy.
In case two or more candidates obtain equal marks/percentile scores in the NEET (UG) – 2024, the inter-se-merit shall be determined as follows:
(Edited by Sumavarsha Kandula)
