NEW DELHI/KOLKATA: Kolkata, Bangalore and Mumbai shared honours as students registered all time high scores in the class X and XII results conducted by the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations, led by a Kolkata boy who had a near-perfect 99.75% in the class XII exam. Arkya Chatterjee of Kolkata’s Vivekananda Mission School scored 399 out of 400 in his best-of-four subjects, beating the previous highest of 398 registered in 2012 . Arkya had three perfect scores — 100 out of 100 in Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science.So, where did Arkya ‘slip’? “A 99 out of 100 in English,” said the 18-year-old, with a shy smile. He also notched up 99 in Chemistry.A Barcelona supporter and die-hard Messi fan, Arkya told TOI he spent 10 to 12 hours a day preparing for the board exams. “I am a little undecided between taking up pure science for graduation or going for engineering. Given a chance I would love to study physics at IISc, Bangalore,” he said.The overall pass percentage in ISC (class XII) was 96.28, up by 1.01% from 2014. South India continued to dominate the pass percentages, registering 99.08 (English plus best three subjects).The commerce toppers this year were S Kavya from Vidya Niketan School, Bangalore, and Rounak Agarwal of Delhi Public School Megacity, Kolkata, who scored 99.50%. Priyanka Sen of G D Birla Centre for Education, Kolkata, with a score of 99.50% was the arts topper for 2015.The familiar story of girls beating boys continued. The girls’ pass percentage in ISC was 97.24 as against the boys’ 94.29. A total of 71,141 candidates appeared for the exams conducted in 52 written subjects. The maximum number of candidates were from the northern region. The southern region, though, had the highest percentage of girls, 49.49, who had appeared for the examination.A total of 138 candidates with special difficulties took the exam, of which six dyslexic candidates and four visually challenged scored over 90%. One of the four candidates who took their exams from hospital also scored more than 90%.The northern region, where Delhi/NCR falls, was fourth in overall pass percentage among the five regions, registering 96.04%. The north topper was Rupal Goel of Holy Child School, Ghaziabad who scored 99% in commerce.The council also announced the class X results on Monday, whose overall pass percentage registered a marginal increase. The overall pass percentage was 98.49 up by 0.21% from 2014. Girls’ pass percentage was 98.95 as opposed to 98.12 among boys. South zone again topped with 99.66 pass percentage.The top position was being shared by three candidates — Sougata Chowdhury, St Xavier’s Collegiate School, Kolkata, Ananya Harshad Patwardhan, Chatrabhuj Narsee Memorial School, Mumbai, and Tezan Tapan Sahu, St Mary’s ICSE School, Navi Mumbai, all scoring 99.2% (496/500).The topper from Delhi/NCR region was Harshita Choudhary of Sri Ram School, Gurgaon, scoring 98.8%. The pass percentage of Delhi/NCR region was 98.50%.Category wise results have also improved significantly, with 97.18% of the SC, 96.48% of ST and 98.28% of the OBC candidates qualifying the class X exam. Similarly 95.02% of SC, 93.22% of ST and 95.71% of OBC candidates qualified the class XII exam.