In Brief
OCI card-holding students challenged a 2021 government notification that restricted their eligibility to appear for medical entrance exams. Previously, they could compete for all seats alongside Indian citizens; the new rule limited them to NRI-quota seats only. The Supreme Court held the notification valid but retroactive and arbitrary as applied to existing cardholders. The Court ruled that while the government has sovereign power to modify non-citizen rights, it must do so with reasoned deliberation and fairness. The notification operates prospectively only for OCI cardholders who obtain status after 2021; existing cardholders retain their earlier rights to compete for general seats.
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