Prateek Tanmay
3 min readAhmedabadJun 19, 2026 12:14 AM IST
By Manushi Patel
Staying away from smartphones was a common practice among the city toppers of the Chartered Accountants final exam, the results for which were announced on Thursday.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), Ahmedabad, saw 91 of its 664 students clearing both groups combined.
Hamza Pulavwala, who achieved rank 1 from the city with 396/600, says he “switched off his phone completely” and stayed in touch with friends only through his mother’s device.
“I prioritised theory-heavy subjects in the morning,” Pulavwala tells The Indian Express, even as all the students said they found the Advanced Financial Management paper “most difficult”.
They said they studied between six and twelve hours a day.
Palak Laddha, Aditya Maheshwari, Hamza Pulavwala, Vansh Lakhvani, Deep Patel, Maan
Aditya Maheshwari, who stood second with 393/600 marks, spent the night studying and balanced academics with badminton and swimming.
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Palak Laddha (Rank 4 in the city) said she studied 10-12 hours a day, but made sure of taking “mandatory breaks” and having eight hours of sleep.
She also maintained an “error log”, a notebook where she recorded every mistake during preparation and reviewed it before subsequent tests to avoid repeating those errors. She gave up her smartphone entirely and used a basic calling-only device during the preparation period.
Deep Patel (Rank 5), studied for 8-10 and used Artificial Intelligence tools such as Claude to condense notes into a chart form.
NEET leak
Speaking about the NEET paper leak, the toppers felt something like this would be “extremely disheartening”. Retaking the exam would not only affect the morale of students but exhaust them mentally, they said, adding “all their efforts would go to waste”.
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“I would be completely devastated if something like that occurred here,” said Laddha.
“We cannot take the exam again. We have studied for six to seven months and struggled a lot,” she said.
Maheshwari said, “It would be a nightmare to take the exam again, it would be unbearable. Students already carry so much anxiety. All my effort and time spent studying, all of it would go waste,” said Maheshwari.
“If a leak happens and you find out, at least you can explain your result to your family. But what about instances where you never find out? How do you answer your parents when they question your results?” said Pulavwala.
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Patel added how the CA exam has never seen a paper leak, saying they are fair and adept at dealing with such situations.
“There are no shortcuts,” the four of them said to those who did not clear this time. Laddha said, “I completely feel their pain, but want to encourage them: Keep going. Don’t give up.”
(Manushi Patel is an intern at The Indian Express, Ahmedabad)
