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A journey that started in 2021 after completing high school has not just ended but brought tears of joy in the Mundada household in Hyderabad. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) released the CA Final, Intermediate and Foundation September 2025 results today (November 3). In this result, Tejas Mundada, a Hyderabad student, achieved the All India Rank (AIR) 2 and brought laurels to his CA family. Tejas started his CA journey in 2021 when he appeared for the Foundation level exam in December. That was the same year his older brother cleared his CA Final examination. The Mundada brothers are not the only CAs in the family. Tejas' father, too, is a practicing CA who has his own established practice in Hyderabad. Also Read | ICAI CA Result 2025 Live "I chose to pursue Chartered Accountancy because I had always been inclined towards Finance and Accountancy. One reason is my father and the other reason is my Marwadi blood. There was no way I could have missed out on becoming a CA after that," he laughs. Tejas also added that one of the many reasons behind choosing Chartered Accountancy as a profession was that he believes this is one of the most reputed professions. He appeared for CA Intermediate exam in 2022 and then for the Final level in September 2025 -- all of which he cleared in the first attempt. While he is currently completing his articleship at Ernst & Young (EY), whether or not he will join his father's practice is something that he is yet to take a decision about. However, he agrees that one of the main reasons why he did not feel like giving up even once during preparing for the exam is because of the environment he received at home due to his father's and brother's experiences. "I had seen my brother go through the tough years of preparing for Ca exam, and I had seen the way my father practiced at his firm, so that was very encouraging. My family was very supportive and helped me whenever I felt stuck," he told Times Now Digital. CA-GPT: The Best AI Tool For CAs Another major help that Tejas received in the final stage of his preparation is ICAI's new Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform, CA GPT. In December 2024, ICAI announced the launch of CA-GPT, a software that has been fed with complete ICAI data, relevant to the main queries. Once somebody puts in a question, the software will find data/answers from the ICAI supplied data, and search engines such as Google or other sources will not be involved in this. Talking about the same, Tejas shared that for him CA GPT served as one of the best available tools. "ICAI's new AI tool was very helpful. It is the ChatGPT version for CAs. This Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool is more aligned with our CA preparation, and was thus way more helpful than any other AI tools in the market," he said. 'Friends Are Not Distractions, But Companions' Tejas is one of the few CA toppers who believes that talking to friends and social media shouldn't be completely taken away while preparing for CA exams. While preparing for CA, Tejas did not delete his social media accounts, and continued hanging out with his friends, who also served as his motivators. "Having friends around was a boon. You always need time for yourself, to rejuvenate and relax, so having friends and sometimes engaging on social media is very important," he said. Tejas, however, did pause his social media activities in the last few months before his Final examination in September 2025. He also added that one of the reasons he liked going to his local coaching centre in Hyderabad was that he could make new friends and interact with them. "When I joined the coaching class, that was one of the advantages I saw. It was always fun hanging out with them and sharing my doubts, problems, progress with these friends as they could understand what I was going through," he recalled. Importance of Teachers and Articleship When asked if he thinks attending a coaching class is important for CA exam preparation, he quickly responded that "more than assessing if I could prepare without it, the bigger question is did I want to prepare with the coaching centre? And the answer to that is no. I was sure that I wanted to opt for a coaching class because no matter what everyone says, a teacher adds a lot of value and that is very helpful." While Tejas did spend almost 12 hours studying everyday in the last couple of months leading to the CA Final September 2025 exam, he believes that a lot of learning can happen 'on the job', and it should be taken seriously. "Before the last few weeks started and I started studying 12 hours a day, I was only studying for three hours every day. But during that time, I was learning on-the-job through my articleship, which helped a lot," he explained. Power Of Showing Up One advice that Tejas has for his fellow CA aspirants is that there is no substitute to consistence and discipline. "These two things are very important to succeed in life. It is very important to show up every day and work on achieving your daily target. Whether or not you do brilliantly every day is not guaranteed, but simply showing up and trying to do your best everyday will start yielding results," he advised. "So no matter how tired you are or if you are feeling like studying or not, just show up and sit down to study for a while. The process will follow on its own." Also Read | ICAI CA Result Declared For Foundation, Inter, Final at icai.org; Meet The Toppers ICAI released the results of Final, Intermediate and Foundation level exams today (November 3). AT the Final Level, a total of 11,466 candidates have qualified as Chartered Accountants (CAs). For Group–I, 51,955 candidates appeared, of which 12,811 passed, resulting in a pass percentage of 24.66 per cent. In Group–II, 32,273 candidates appeared and 8,151 passed, marking a 25.26 per cent pass rate. Meanwhile, 16,800 candidates appeared for both groups, out of which 2,727 passed, with a pass percentage of 16.23 per cent. Mukund Agiwal from Dhamnod (MP) is the CA Final topper this year, followed by Tejas Mundada and Bakul Gupta at the second and third spot respectively.
