JEE-Main result: Record 44 candidates score 100 percentile, 18 share top rank

A record 44 candidates have scored 100 percentile in the engineering entrance exam JEE-Main this year while 18 candidates have shared the top rank, according to National Testing Agency (NTA).

The result for the crucial exam was announced post midnight on Tuesday with the website crashing for several hours after that.

The first rank holders included Gaurab Das (Karnataka), Vaibhav Vishal (Bihar), Duggineni Venkata Paneesh (Andhra Pradesh), Siddhant Mukherjee, Anshul Verma and Mridul Agarwal (Rajasthan), Ruchir Bansal and Kavya Chopra (Delhi), Amaiya Singhal and Pal Agarwal (Uttar Pradesh), Komma Sharanya and Joysula Venkata Aditya (Telangana), Pasala Veera Siva, Karnam Lokesh and Kanchanapalli Rahul Naidu, (Andhra Pradesh), Pulkit Goyal (Punjab) and Guramrit Singh (Chandigarh).

Last year, 24 candidates had scored 100 percentile.

On account of using unfair means, a total of 20 candidates have been debarred from appearing in future examinations for a period of three years. Their results have also been withheld.

Starting this year, Joint Entrance Exam (JEE)-Main was conducted four times a year to offer flexibility to students and a chance to improve their scores. The first phase was held in February and the second in March.

The next phases were scheduled for April and May but those were postponed in view of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic that raged through the country affecting lakhs.

The third edition was held from July 20-25 while the fourth edition was conducted from August 26 to September 2.

The examination was conducted in 13 languages -- English, Hindi, Gujarati , Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.

Over 9.34 lakh candidates appeared in four editions of JEE-Main. A total of 2.52 lakh common candidates had appeared for all four editions of the exam.

A total of 6.58 lakh male candidates had appeared for the exam while the number of female candidates appearing for the exam was 2.80 lakh.

The ranks of the candidates have been released taking into consideration the best of the four NTA scores in accordance with the policy already made.

NTA scores are normalised across multi-session papers and are based on the relative performance of all those who appeared for the examination in one session.

"The marks obtained are converted into a scale ranging from 100 to 0 for each session of examinees. NTA score is not the same as the percentage of marks obtained," a senior official said.

As per NTA's tie breaking policy, candidates with higher marks in Mathematics are given preference; followed by NTA score in Physics; followed by NTA score in Chemistry and if the tie remains, the candidate with a lesser ratio of negative to positive response will be preferred.

The examination was conducted in 925 centres in 334 cities including outside India including 12 cities outside India in Bahrain, Colombo, Doha, Dubai, Kathmandu, Kuala Lumpur, Lagos, Muscat, Riyadh, Sharjah, Singapore and Kuwait.