The Bombay High court in an interim order permitted the Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) to appear for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) counselling under the general category. 

OCI Cardholders seeking admissions to courses at any Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) will be now eligible to appear for the JEE counselling under the general category and not in the category which was earlier reserved for NRIs or foreign nationals.

While hearing the petition filed by a female student who challenged the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA's) part of the notification which was released in March 2021, the interim order was passed by a bench consisting of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Madhav Jamdar. 

Earlier, the MHA notified in March 2021, that OCI Cardholders will have to claim to only Non-Resident Indian (NRI) quota seats in the educational institutions on the basis of the all-India entrance tests such as JEE and National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), among others. 

It should be noted that the JEE is conducted for admissions to engineering courses. In contrast, NEET is a medical entrance exam. 

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Senior counsel Vineet Naik, appeared for the petitioner, who questioned the legal validity of the provision. He questioned that while the petitioner student was holding an OCI card, and that she was not an NRI and had pursued her Classes X and XII from India. 

Further, he added that the petitioner was seeking admission to one of the IITs under the general category for the current academic session. He argued saying that students such as the petitioner must be treated as general category candidates and not as foreign national candidates.

If students like petitioners are treated as general category candidates, then they'll be entitled for consideration of a larger pool of seats and courses that would range up to 16,000 – as opposed to 1,600 supernumerary seats, which has been specifically created for foreign nationals, he told. 

Advocate Rui Rodrigues, who appeared for the MHA, the Education Ministry and the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSSA), replied saying the HC that while exercising its powers under the Citizenship Act to specify the rights of OCI cardholders, the center issued the MHA notification. 

However, the Bombay high court said that with regards to the interim orders of the Supreme Court and the Madras HC, similar interim relief would be granted to the petitioner.

As an interim, the HC directed the respondents, specifically respondent number three (JoSSA) to announce the petitioner's results in the JEE Main and to allow them to appear for the counselling under the general category, the HC said. 

Meanwhile, the HC will hear the matter on November 23 and the selection or admission of the petition to the IITs will be subject to the final HC order.