The Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) has declared the matric results. The topper Sawan Raj Bharti from Simultala Awasiya Vidyalaya of Jamui district secured an overall 97.2% (486 marks) in the 10th board examination.  After Bharti, the top four rank holders are Rounit Raj, Priyanshu Raj, Adarsh Ranjan and Aditya Roy, all from the same school.

Reportedly, out of the top 18 rankers, 17 belong to the same school as the first rank holder i.e., Simultala Awasiya Vidyalaya. The 9th rank holder, Ankesh Kumar, is, however, a student of Alok Bharti Shikshan Sansthan Bettiah which is situated in the West Champaran district of Bihar.

The principal of Simultala Awasiya Vidyalaya has said that they are "ready for investigation" as questions have been raised regarding the toppers list (top 17 rank holders belong to the same school), as per reports. "As the school is a government entity, they have no vested interests behind the results. The school is open for any kind of investigation", the Indian Express quoted Principal Rajiv Ranjan as saying.

The pass percentage has also increased and touched a record of 80.73% this year. As per reports, a total of 6,83,990 boys have passed the examination while the number of girls who have cleared the examination is 6,36,046.

This year, around 13.2 lakh students (13,20,036) have cleared the class 10 board examination.

As per reports, BSEB chairman Anand Kishor had announced the BSEB 10th board results at a press conference which was held at the BSEB office in Patna. RK Mahajan, Additional chief secretary of the Bihar Education Department was also present at the press conference.

Kishor had earlier told in a press conference about the steps taken by the BSEB to monitor the Bihar Board examinations.  A control room was put up along with a 24X7 WhatsApp group for monitoring purposes. All the district nodal officers, district education officers and the DMs were connected in the WhatsApp group, as per reports.

(Edited by: Nehal Solanki)