Shubham Kumar topped the civil services examination 2020 with 52.04 per cent marks, and second rank holder Jagrati Awasthi scored 51.95 per cent in the prestigious test conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to select the country's civil servants.

A total of 761 candidates – 545 men and 216 women – have cleared the examination, results of which were announced by the commission on Friday.

The civil services examination is conducted by the UPSC in three stages – preliminary, main and interview – to select officers for the Indian Administrative Service, Indian Foreign Service and Indian Police Service among others.

The preliminary examination consists of two papers of objective type (multiple choice) questions and carries a maximum of 400 marks.

This stage is meant to serve as a screening test only, and the marks obtained in it by the candidates who are declared qualified for admission to the main examination are not counted for determining their final order of merit.

The merit is determined out of the total of 2,025 marks – written or main exam is of 1,750 marks and the interview is of 275.

Kumar got a total of 1,054 marks – 878 in the written and 176 in the personality test (or interview), according to UPSC data.

Awasthi scored 1,052 – 859 in written and 193 in interview, it showed.

Third rank holder Ankita Jain got 1,051 – 839 in the main and 212 in the interview – and fourth rank holder Yash Jaluka scored 1,046 (851 in written and 195 in interview).

Mamta Yadav was awarded the fifth rank with a total of 1,042 marks – 855 in written and 187 in the interview.

The civil services (preliminary) examination 2020 was conducted on October 4 last year.

As many as 10,40,060 candidates applied for the examination, out of whom 4,82,770 had appeared in it.

Of these, 10,564 candidates qualified for appearance in the written (main) examination which was held in January 2021.

A total of 2,053 candidates qualified for the personality test (interview).

The 761 recommended candidates include 25 persons with benchmark disability -- seven orthopedically handicapped, four visually challenged, 10 hearing impaired and four with multiple disabilities.

Of the successful candidates, 263 are of general category, 86 from the economically weaker section (EWS), 220 of Other Backward Classes (OBC), 122 Scheduled Castes (SC) and 61 belong to the Scheduled Tribes category.