(Article not important as such) but posting for the archive record, because government site arbitrarily remove files from their servers.

Earlier UPSC had released the list of marks for 2012’s Toppers. Click me.
But that list did not contain marks in individual papers (i.e. essay, GS1, GS2, Optional 1 and Optional 2). RTI adventures did not bear fruits.

However, Personnel Ministry has released full marksheet of all 2012’s toppers- including their marks in individual paper and category, on their website. (PDF quality is very poor by the way). Link given below.

Some observations

Since PDF is in terribly low quality of 40 pages. Haven’t done any detailed analysis. But from superficial viewing, I observed following:

Lowest marks in Essay by a topper =42/200.

Highest marks in Essay by a topper =125/200.

Optionals

By and large, most toppers are given respectable scores in individual papers of optional II. (Given the tough scaling in 2012, ‘respectable-score’ means any ‘three digit’ score out of 300 in an optional paper.)

Most of the two-digit scores are observed in Paper I of optional I. Some notable ones are:

Name* Marks in Paper I Optional-I out of 300 Rank
Sujatha 31 ~300
Surendra 36 ~400
Ajey 31 ~500
Balram 24 ~850
Hansraj 29 ~970

Enough material to come up with new conspiracy theories about scaling process.
[*No disrespect meant to any of those toppers, table given only for illustration.]

Download official marksheet list of CSE-2012 Toppers

Official link: http://persmin.gov.in/AIS1/Docs/2012_Main_MarkSheet.pdf

Google Docs: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0DPgaYAtDgmWnZLMnpnM3pMaGs/edit?usp=sharing

My Server (ZIP): https://files.secureserver.net/0sz3Q2mlxvhL2Z

subject codes( for that PDF file)

  • 21 AGRICULTURE
  • 22 BOTANY
  • 23 CHEMISTRY
  • 24 CIVIL ENGINEERING
  • 25 COMMERCE & ACCOUNTANCY
  • 26 ECONOMICS
  • 27 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
  • 28 GEOGRAPHY
  • 29 GEOLOGY
  • 30 HISTORY
  • 31 LAW
  • 32 MANAGEMENT
  • 33 MATHEMATICS
  • 34 MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
  • 35 PHILOSOPHY
  • 36 PHYSICS
  • 37 POLITICAL SCIENCE & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
  • 38 PSYCHOLOGY
  • 39 SOCIOLOGY
  • 40 ZOOLOGY
  • 41 STATISTICS
  • 42 ANIMAL HUSBANDRY & VETERINARY SCIENCE
  • 43 ANTHROPOLOGY
  • 44 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
  • 45 MEDICAL SCIENCE