The current tie-breaking order
Under the tie-breaking policy the NTA has followed in recent years, when two or more candidates land on the exact same overall score, rank isn't decided by a draw of lots or by age — both of which were scrapped in earlier cycles. Instead, the agency works through a fixed sequence: candidates are first compared on their Biology (Botany and Zoology) marks, with the higher scorer ranked ahead. If that's still tied, Chemistry marks are compared next, followed by Physics. If candidates remain tied even after all three subjects are checked individually, the final step compares each candidate's ratio of incorrect to correct answers across all subjects — the candidate with a lower proportion of wrong answers relative to correct ones is ranked higher.

What this means for Gupta and Bansal
Even though both candidates ended up with the same total of 715 marks, their subject-wise performance in Biology, Chemistry or Physics — or their incorrect-to-correct answer ratio, if it came down to that final step — wasn't identical. Whichever of the two performed marginally better on the first subject where a difference existed would be placed ahead in the official merit list, even though public messaging and much of the initial media coverage rounded both off as sharing the top rank given their equal marks.

Why this distinction actually matters
For most students, a rank difference within the very top bracket might look academic, but in NEET counselling, even a gap of one or two ranks at the top can matter when institutions like AIIMS Delhi have only a handful of open seats and admission comes down to exact rank order rather than score alone.

The broader tie-breaking history
NTA's approach to this has shifted several times over the years — age was removed as a factor in 2021, application number and age were both dropped in the 2023 revision, and the current subject-wise-then-ratio method has been the standard since. This year's Gupta-Bansal case is a fairly clean real-world illustration of how that current system actually plays out when two candidates finish with identical overall scores.

Candidates checking their own NEET 2026 rank should keep this in mind if their marks match another candidate's total but their ranks differ — it isn't an error, it reflects the same subject-wise tie-break sequence now working out in the official merit order.