OCI's plan to challenge MHA notification in HC

• Home ministry issued a gazette notification that OCI card holders can claim "only NRI quota seats" in educational institutions.
• It specifies that OCIs can only follow a limited occupations including doctors, lawyers, architects and chartered accountants, and the rest will require "special permission".
• Taking this notification as discriminatory OCI card holders are planning to move HC.

• The notification said that OCIs shall be required to obtain a “special permission or a special permit” from the competent authority or the FRRO or the Indian mission to undertake research, missionary or Tabligh or mountaineering or journalistic activities or internship in any foreign diplomatic missions.

Admissions uncertain

• Even if an OCI student has secured a high rank in any exam, several institutions of repute do not have NRI seats.
• Also, the exorbitantly high fees under the NRI quota cannot be afforded by many OCIs as they live and work in India.
• Thus, India-domiciled OCI students are deprived of domicile status both in India [country of residence] as well as the country of their citizenship.

Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI)

• It is a form of permanent residence available to people of Indian origin and their spouses that allows them to live and work in India indefinitely.
• OCI status is not citizenship and does not give the right to vote or hold public office in Indian elections.
• Government of India can revoke OCI status under a wide variety of circumstances.
• The scheme was launched by the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2005 in response to the demand for dual citizenship by an Indian citizen.
• No OCI status, who has ever been a Pakistani or Bangladeshi citizen, or who is the child, grandson, or great-grandson of such a person, has been granted.
• So far, 37.72 lakh OCI cards have been issued by the Government of India.