Education / Why was Soyeb Aftab declared NEET topper even as Akanksha scored 720/720?

New Delhi: Delhi's Akansha Singh scored 720 out of 720 marks in medical entrance exam NEET, but lost the top rank to Odisha's Soyeb Aftab due to her younger age which is one of the factors accounted in the National Testing Agency's tie-breaking policy.

According to officials, the tie-breaking policy takes into account factors such as age, subject-wise marks and number of incorrect answers.

"Soyeb Aftab of Odisha and Akansha Singh of Delhi have both scored perfect 720 score in the NEET examination. However, as Aftab is older, he has been ranked at the top in the national ranking," an official said.

"The ranking of the candidate is initially determined based on the scores obtained in Biology and Chemistry. Following these, in cases where the candidates cannot be shortlisted using the scores obtained in the examination, candidates are further shortlisted taking into consideration the number of answers that are incorrect, following which they are then shortlisted depending on their age. The elder one gets the preference," the official explained.

The result of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) was announced on Friday night with over 7.7 lakh candidates qualifying the exam.

The same tie-breaking policy has been used for deciding further ranks.

Tummala Snikitha (Telangana), Vineet Sharma (Rajasthan), Amrisha Khaitan (Haryana) and Guthi Chaitanya Sindhu (Andhra Pradesh) have scored 715 out of 720 marks. However, they have been ranked third, fourth, fifth and sixth respectively.

Similarly, those ranked from 8th to 20th have scored 710 marks and those ranked from 25th to 50th have scored 705 out of 720 marks.

The exam was conducted on September 13 amid strict precautions in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

From this year, the admissions to MBBS course in 13 All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Puducherry, will also be made through NEET following the amendment in National Medical Commission Act, 2019, passed by Parliament last year.

The test was offered in 11 languages -- English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Odia, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu -- this year. Based on the initial report, more than 77 per cent aspirants took the test in English, around 12 per cent in Hindi and 11 per cent in other languages.

The exam was earlier postponed twice due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the government decided to go ahead with it, despite opposition by a section, to mitigate any further academic loss.