Pre-2021 OCI cardholders entitled to Delhi engineering counselling on par with Indian nationals, Delhi High Court rules

The petitioner, born in Houston, USA, held an OCI card issued on 31 October 2019 and had completed his entire schooling in India, including Class XII from CBSE, Delhi, in 2026.

He appeared in JEE 2026 under the OCI/PIO category, secured 99.21 percentile and obtained All India Rank 12,617.

The petitioner sought to register for the 2026 Joint Admission Counselling (“JAC”) for undergraduate engineering admissions but was prevented from doing so because JAC did not permit OCI cardholders to participate.

During the proceedings, the Court had directed the respondents on 10 July 2026 to permit the petitioner to participate in JAC counselling.

Whether an OCI cardholder whose OCI status was obtained before 4 March 2021 was entitled to participate in JAC counselling and be treated at par with Indian nationals, notwithstanding the JAC admission brochure excluding OCI candidates?

Whether the petitioner could be denied access to JAC counselling on the ground that DASA counselling constituted an alternative admission mechanism, when he was ineligible for DASA under its foreign-education requirement?

Whether the petitioner’s non-challenge to the JAC brochure and the alleged legitimate expectations of other candidates barred the grant of relief?

Whether the respondents had violated the Court’s interim order dated 10 July 2026 by failing to meaningfully permit the petitioner to participate in counselling?

The Court exercised its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution to issue a writ of mandamus for enforcement of the petitioner’s legal entitlement.

It applied Section 7B(1) of the Citizenship Act, 1955, read with the Ministry of Home Affairs notification dated 4 March 2021, which restricted OCI cardholders to admission against NRI or supernumerary seats and excluded them from seats reserved exclusively for Indian citizens.

Relying principally on Anushka Rengunthwar v. Union of India, (2023) 11 SCC 209, the Court held that the 4 March 2021 notification operates prospectively and that OCI cardholders who obtained their status before that date retain the rights and privileges available under the earlier regime, including treatment at par with Indian nationals.

The Court further applied the principle that legitimate expectation cannot be founded on an unreasonable or legally impermissible practice.

The Court also invoked the contempt jurisdiction under Articles 215 of the Constitution and Sections 11 and 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971.

The Court held that the expression “such other tests” in the 4 March 2021 notification was broad enough to encompass counselling processes such as JAC, even though JAC was not expressly named.

Since the petitioner’s OCI card had been issued before 4 March 2021, the protection recognised in Anushka Rengunthwar applied to him.

Excluding him from JAC solely because it was a different counselling mechanism, while recognising comparable rights in other admission processes, lacked intelligible differentia and rational nexus with the object of regulating admissions.

The Court rejected the respondents’ reliance on DASA because the petitioner did not satisfy its foreign-education requirement; relegating him to DASA would therefore leave him without any meaningful admission avenue.

It also held that the petitioner was not required to separately challenge the brochure because he was seeking implementation of a binding Supreme Court judgment, not alteration of the academic eligibility criteria.

The legitimate expectations of other candidates could not override the petitioner’s legally protected right or justify continuation of an unlawful exclusion.

Given his rank of 12,617 and the allotment of seats to candidates with lower merit, the Court found that the petitioner had suffered concrete prejudice.

In the contempt proceedings, the Court found that merely permitting registration, without considering the petitioner’s candidature for actual seat allotment, did not constitute compliance with the order dated 10 July 2026.

The Court directed JAC to treat the petitioner as a Resident Indian National and allot him the seat corresponding to his rank within two weeks.

If necessary, a supernumerary seat could be created to prevent prejudice to the petitioner’s academic career, consistently with the exceptional remedy recognised in S. Krishna Sradha.

The connected contempt petition was disposed of in view of the substantive directions in the writ petition, with liberty to the petitioner to revive it if the respondents failed to comply within the stipulated period.