The Gujarat High Court (Ahmedabad Bench) has clarified that for the purpose of determining domicile in Gujarat, a temporary break in physical stay or schooling outside the State caused by a parent’s transfer cannot automatically defeat a student’s claim to domicile when the student’s real and enduring residential connection remains with Gujarat. The Court accepted that domicile under the governing rule is not to be read as requiring an inflexible, uninterrupted ten-year physical stay if the rules themselves do not impose that condition.
The Court also reinforced the principle that administrative instructions or circulars cannot add eligibility conditions beyond what the statutory or governing rules require. Therefore, where the rule only speaks of “domicile of Gujarat State,” the authorities cannot deny a domicile certificate solely by importing a stricter requirement of continuous ten-year residence through a circular.
A Single Judge Bench of Justice Nirzar S. Desai noted that the controversy was no longer open because coordinate Benches had already examined the meaning of “domicile” in the context of Gujarat admission and domicile rules. The Court reproduced and relied upon the reasoning in Muskan Sunilkanth Tiwari vs. State of Gujarat [Special Civil Application No.17426 of 2018], where it was held that domicile is linked to residence of a particular kind and signifies a permanent or indefinite connection with the State, and that such residence need not always be literally continuous in the narrow physical sense urged by the authorities.
The Court also noted that the earlier precedent had specifically held that Rule 4(1-A) only requires that a candidate be a domicile of Gujarat and does not itself prescribe a condition of minimum continuous ten-year stay. The precedent further made it clear that if the rules do not impose such an additional condition, the State cannot introduce it through an administrative letter or circular. This was treated as a central legal reason for rejecting the State’s stand in the present case.
Applying those principles, the Court observed that the petitioner had studied in Gujarat from KG to Standard XII except for a two-year period in Chennai. That interruption was not voluntary in the legal sense but arose only because of her father’s transfer. The Court held that such a temporary period outside Gujarat could not reasonably be treated as breaking the continuity of residence for domicile purposes, especially when the petitioner returned to Gujarat and completed her later education there.
Briefly, the petitioner, an 18-year-old student, was born in Mumbai on March 15, 2008. Her father was posted to Mundra, Kutch, in Gujarat in 2008, after which she began her schooling in Gujarat and studied there from nursery in 2011 until Standard IV in 2018. Thereafter, due to her father’s transfer, the family shifted to Chennai for about two years, from April 2018 to May 2020. In 2020, her father was transferred back to Gujarat, and she was admitted to Delhi Public School, Bopal, Ahmedabad, where she continued her studies from Standard VII until completion of Standard XII in March 2026.
After completing school, the petitioner applied for courses including NEET-related admission processes and, for availing local domicile benefits, applied for a Domicile Certificate on Feb 05, 2026 before the concerned Police Inspector. Her application was rejected by an order dated March 06, 2026, communicated on March 20, 2026, on the ground that she had not been a continuous resident of Gujarat for ten years and therefore was not eligible for issuance of a Domicile Certificate. She challenged that rejection before the High Court and confined her petition to seeking quashing of the rejection order and a direction for issuance of the certificate.
The State defended the rejection by relying on the Government Circular governing domicile certificates and argued that the petitioner was required to show continuous residence in Gujarat for ten years. The petitioner, in response, argued that the issue was already settled by earlier Gujarat High Court decisions and emphasized that she had spent the overwhelming part of her life in Gujarat, with only a short break caused solely by her father’s transfer outside the State.
