ALEKHYA PONNEKANTI Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All the petitioner-students being the Overseas Citizen of India Cardholders in terms of inter alia u/ss 7A and 7B of the Citizenship Act, 1955 (hereafter '1955 Act') are grieving before the Writ Court against a part of Central Govt. Notification dtd. 4/3/2021 at Annexure-A whereby certain rights of professional education vested in them by virtue of earlier Notifications dtd. 11/4/2005 and 5/1/2009 have been taken away; after service of notice, the respondents having entered appearance through their counsel, resist the Writ Petitions by filing their Statements of Objections and by making submissions in justification of the impugned notification and other consequential actions; in compliance with the request of a Division Bench of this Court, all these cases having substantially similar fact and legal matrices, are taken up for expeditious disposal, after rejecting the strange submission of learned ASG Mr.Nargund for deferring the hearing till after the Apex Court disposes off arguably a similar pending matter; this rejection was owing to the fact that the Central Govt. was a party eo nominee to the cases before the said DB.

(2.) FOUNDATIONAL FACTS and CONTENTIONS: (a) Petitioners hold OCI Certificates of Registration; most of them are major by age; they have been studying in the State of Karnataka for the past several years; they have completed their SSLC/10th Std and PUC/12th Std, on par with the native citizens; after their qualifying examinations, they attempted to get online registration with the Karnataka Examinations Authority (hereafter 'KEA') to appear for the Common Entrance Test-2021; however, the KEA did not accord them registration for admission to 'Government Seats' and non-supernumerary seats on the ground that they are not the Indian citizens; this is on the basis of the impugned notification. (b) The impugned part of the subject notification (as concised) reads as under: "In exercise of the powers conferred by sub sec. (1) of sec. 7B of the Citizenship Act 1955.. and in supersession of the notification.. dtd. 11/4/2005 and the notification..dtd. 5/1/2007 and S.O.36(E), dtd. 5/1/2009.., the Central Government hereby specifies the following rights to which an Overseas Citizen of India Cardholder..shall be entitled..namely:- (1) x...xx...xxx....xxxx (2) x...xx...xxx....xxxx (3) x...xx...xxx....xxxx (4) parity with Non-Resident Indians in the matter of,-

(3.) I have heard the learned counsel appearing for the parties; I have perused the Pleadings and Papers; I have also read the decisions cited at the Bar; having done that exercise, the following questions are framed for consideration: