Judgement

CHANDRA REDDY, C. J.: -

This is a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution filed by a person seeking admission into the Engineering College attached to the Osmania University, Hyderabad.

2. The rules of that University inter alia require an applicant for admission into any of the colleges affiliated to the University to produce a certificate of domicile if his parents do not fall within any of the categories enumerated in the relevant rule, which is in these words:-

"Rule 6: (i) Admission to the Colleges in the University shall ordinarily be restricted to candidates domiciled in the Telangana Region of Andhra Pradesh and to candidates whose parents are domiciled in the Telangana Region. If a candidate has had his education outside this Region, he shall submit along with his application form for admission a certificate to show that his parents are domiciled in the Telangana Region of the Andhra Pradesh.

(ii) Officers of the University, officers of the affiliated colleges (except in the case of admission into the Faculties of Medicine and Engineering), officers of the Government of India stationed in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, their wives and children will be exempted from the production of the certificate of domicile.

(iii) The children of the Officers of Government of Andhra Pradesh belonging to the Andhra Region, posted in the capital may be admitted to the concerned pre-professional courses, provided they come in by merit.

The Telangana students, who, but for the admissions mentioned in the preceding paragraph would have otherwise secured admission, are entitled to admission into the corresponding colleges in the Andhra Region without any further process of selection.

(iv) Bona fide refugees from Pakistan settled in the Telangana Region of Andhra Pradesh shall also be exempted from the production of the Domicile certificate. They are, however, required to produce a certificate from the Ministry of Rehabilitation, Government of India or from the Department of Resettlement, Government of Andhra Pradesh to the effect that they are bona fide refugees.

(v) Sons and daughters of non-officials who had moved into Telangana Region of Andhra Pradesh soon after 1-11-1956 and are bona fide permanent residents thereof will also be exempted from the production of Nativity certificate for purposes of admission to Pre-professinal and professional courses in place of students selected from Telangana Region who are prepared to be admitted in colleges in Andhra Region.

(vi) Candidates from any of the enclaves which have now been included in the Telangana Districts of Andhra Pradesh shall be required to produce a certificate of domicile in that area for a period of at least 15 years."

3. For a person to obtain a domicile certificate in the concerned region, he or his parents should have lived in the territory known as Telangana for a period of fifteen years. In addition to this, every person irrespective of the place of domicile, has also to produce a certificate of nativity, no distinction being made between one student and another in this behalf. The purpose for which such a nativity certificate has to be produced is not relevant in the context of the present enquiry.

4. The petitioner, who is the son of an officer of the United Nations Organization working as Unicef Field Representative, passed the Pre University Examination of the Osmania University from the Nizams college securing a high percentage of marks and he applied for admission into the Engineering college. As he could not produce a certificate of domicile since he had settled down in Andhra Pradesh only in or about May 1957, he felt that his application for admission would not receive consideration on its merits. Hence, he presented this petition for the issue of a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ directing the respondents to entertain the petitioners application for admission, consider the same on the basis of merit ignoring the nativity certificate required to be produced and to pass such further order or orders as it may deem fit and proper.

5. We may mention here that evidently there was some confusion in the mind of the petitioner as to the nature of the nativity certificate. The hurdle in the way of the petitioner securing admission in the college is the certificate of domicile and not a nativity certificate which every applicant has to produce regardless of the region to which he belongs. In fact, we are told that he had produced the nativity certificate in form No.III.

6. We shall, therefore, proceed on the Assumption that it is the want of certificate of domicile that stands in the way of the petitioner obtaining a seat in the professional college. The complaint of the petitioner is that the rule, which calls upon every applicant to produce a certificate of domicile and classifies the candidates for this purpose into two groups, one consisting of candidates from the Telangana area and children of Central and State Government officials, and the other group consisting of the rest of the candidates, is the result of extraneous matters, such as political consideration and that this rule is void in that it violates the fundamental rights of the petitioner guaranteed under the Constitution. It is urged by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the rule which discriminates the candidates on the basis of place or birth is violative of Article 15 of the Constitution and that it also infringes Article 14 of the Constitution as it denies equal opportunity to applicants situated in the same position as the petitioner.

7. The main controversy which calls for resolution, therefore, is whether the rule under challenge contravenes either Article 15 or Article 14. We shall first consider this matter with reference to Article 15. It recites.

"(1) The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them.

* * * *."

8. Sri Chowdary argues on the basis of this article that the petitioner and other persons in similar position are discriminated against on the ground of place of birth. We cannot subscribe to this view. It is to be noted that according to the rule the applicant or his parents should have acquired a domicile by residing with any part of Telangana. Thus what is contemplated by the rule is, place of residence and not place of birth. It is the proof of place of residence for a number of years and not place of birth. Place of birth and place of domicile are two different concepts each with different import, the first bearing on the place where the candidate is born while the other relates to the place where the candidate or his parents reside.

9. The distinction between these two notions is well brought out, if we may say so with respect, by their Lordships of the Supreme Court in D.P. Joshi v. State of Madhya Bharat, (S) AIR 1955 SC 334 at p.337. In that ruling, Venkatarama Ayyar, J. who spoke for the Court observed:

"Domicile of a person means his permanent home. "Domicile means permanent home, and if that was not understood by itself no illustration could help to make it intelligible." This is based on the dictum of Lord Cranworth in Whicker v. Hume, (1858) 28 LJ Ch 396 at p.400. The learned Judge also referred to Dicey on Conflict of Laws, 6th Edition, page 88 where the learned author observed:

"The domicile of origin, though received at birth, need not be either the country in which the infant is born; or the country in which his parents are residing, or the country to which his father belongs by race or allegiance, or the country of the infants nationality."

10. In Somerville v. Somerville, (1801) 5 Ves.750 at p.786 Anden, Master of the Rolls remarked:

"I speak of the domicile of origin rather than of birth; I find no authority which gives for the purpose of succession any effect to the place of birth. If the son of an Englishman is born upon a journey, his domicile will follow that of his father."

11. It is thus manifest that place of birth is not synonymous with place of domicile and the prohibition enacted in Article 15 of the Constitution is the discrimination resting on plate of birth whereas in the offending rule the discrimination rests on the place of domicile. Hence, it could not be posited that the rule in question offends against the principle embodied in Article 15.

12. It was next urged by Sri Chowdary that at any rate it was unreasonable that persons of the same State should be required to prove domicile in a paricular part of that State and that at least on this ground the rule should be struck down. We do not think that we can accede to this proposition. Different considerations prevail with regard to different areas of the State of Andhra Pradesh. It may be mentioned here that in fact different laws obtain in the two different regions of Andhra Pradesh. That such a thing is not repugnant to any of the known principles can be gathered from (S) AIR 1955 SC 334 at p.337. Says Venkatarama Ayyar J. at page 338.

"Domicile has reference to the system of law by which a person is governed, and when we speak of the domicile of a country, we assume that the same system of law prevails all over that country. But it might well happen that laws relating to succession and marriage might not be the same all over the country, and that different areas in the State might have different laws in respect of those matters. In that case, each area having a distinct set of laws would itself be regarded as a country for the purpose of domicile."

13. The test propounded by Venkatarama Ayyar J. applies to this case also because, as we have already mentioned, different sets of laws prevail in the two different regions of Andhra Pradesh.

14. We may here extract what Dicey says at page 83 in his book on Conflict of Laws:

"The area contemplated throughout the Rules relating to domicile is a country or territory subject to one system of law. The reason for this is that the object of this treatise, in so far as it is concerned with domicile, is to show how far a persons rights are affected by his having his legal home or domicile within a territory governed by one system of law, i.e., within a given country, rather within another.

If indeed it happened that one part of a country governed generally by one system of law, was in many respects subject to special rules of law, then it would be essential to determine whether D. was domiciled within such particular part e.g., California in the United States; but in this case, such part would be pro tanto a separate country, in the sense in which that term is employed in these Rules."

15. Again, in Halsburys Laws of England, Volume, 6, page 246 it is stated:

"_____ where that State comprises more than one system of law, a domicile is acquired in that part of the State where the individual resides."

Such being the real position, we do not think that we can give effect to this branch of the argument of Sri Chowdary.

16. We shall next proceed to consider whether the persons of the type of the petitioner are denied the doctrine of equal treatment of laws. In finding a solution to this problem. We have to bear in mind the fact that Osmania University was constituted originally for the erstwhile State of Hyderabad. After the formation of Andhra Pradesh, the Osmania university act (ix of 1959) extended only to the area comprising the districts of Adilabad, Hyderabad, Karimnagar, Khammam, Mahabubnagar, Medak, Nalgonda, Nizambad and Warrngal in the State of Andhra Pradesh. Furthermore, the area of the University is made coterminous with the extent of the applicability of this Act. In other words, only colleges and institutions situated within these districts that can be said to be affiliated to that University. Thus, it is clear that this University was constituted and various colleges affiliated to it were started for the purpose of affording educational facilities to the students hailing from that area. It is to give encouragement to the students of this area that this rule was framed.

17. Now, could it be said that the classification is unreasonable infringing the principle enunciated in Article 14 of the Constitution? Our answer is in the negative. It will be seen that this classification is based on the residence of students of their parents. Such classification is not forbidden by Article 14. It is to be remembered that what is inhibited by this article is class legislation and not a reasonable classification. As has been repeatedly pointed out by the Supreme Court, in order to pass the test of permissible classification, two conditions must be fulfilled, namely (i) that the classification must be founded on an intelligible differentia which distinguishes persons or things that are grouped together from others left out of the group and (ii) that there must be a nexus between the basis of the classification and the object of the legislaion under consideration. It is also well recognised that the classification may be founded on different basis, namely, geographical or according to objects or occupations or the like. Could it be said that the tests propounded have not been satisfied in this case? There can be no dispute that the classification in this behalf rests on the residence of the applicants or their parents. Thus, it is geographical. There is also a classification based on occupation, namely, sons of officials working in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad on the one hand and others on the other. Such classifications are permissible under Art.14. Hence it can be safely postulated that the classification is reasonable.

18. Is there a reasonable relation between the classification and the object of the rule? Surely, there is; namely, giving educational facilities and encouragement to the students of the region known as Telangana. That being the position we do not think that there is any contravention of Article 14 of the Constitution. Hence, we are not satisfied that the impugned rule is open to attack as being violative of Article 14 of the Constitution. In these circumstances, we are not convinced that the rules are either arbitrary capricious or unreasonable or that they are in conflict with or repugnant to the principles underlying Articles 14 arid 15 of the Constitution.

19. We, therefore, dismiss the writ petition. No costs.

Petition dismissed.