What are the essential requisites or qualifications to be treated as a native of Kerala? Will the child of native parents of Kerala State become disentitled to be recognized as a native of Kerala, if he/she had been born, brought up and educated outside Kerala?

2. These are the two primary questions that have cropped up for consideration in this writ petition.

3. Relevant facts, shorn of unnecessary details, may be briefly noticed.

4. Petitioner who is a Post Graduate in Computer Application had submitted Ext.P2 application for selection to the post of Higher Secondary School Teacher in Computer Science/Computer Application, in response to Ext.P1 notification issued by the Kerala Public Service Commission. Petitioner passed the written test conducted by the Commission and she was included in the supplementary list under the Head “Ezhava”. The Village Officer, Poolakode had issued Ext.P6 community certificate certifying that petitioner belonged to Hindu Thiyya community. In response to Ext.P7 communication received from the commission, petitioner had produced Ext.P8 certificate issued by the Village Officer, Poolakode certifying that the Hindu Thiyya community, to which the petitioner belonged, had been designated as a backward class in the State of Kerala. Petitioner had also produced Ext.P15 nativity certificate issued by the Additional Tahsildar, Kozhikode certifying that petitioner is a native of Kerala.

5. But the Commission took the view that petitioner was not eligible to be invited for interview since she was not a native of Kerala. In Ext.P13 communication issued by the Commission, petitioner was informed that she would not be entitled to get the benefit of caste reservation since she was not a permanent resident of Kerala.

6. Petitioner prays for issue of a writ of certiorari to quash Ext.P13 communication issued by the Commission. She further prays for issue of a writ of mandamus or such other appropriate writ, order or direction commanding the respondents to include her under the category “Other Backward Class”, in order to be considered for selection to the post of Higher Secondary school Teacher in Computer Science/Computer Application.

7. Sri. Rajesh R. Kormath, learned counsel for the petitioner contends that the stand taken by the Commission is totally illegal, arbitrary and untenable. He points out that the Commission had not disputed the fact that petitioner’s parents are natives of Kerala, who hail from Malappuram village of Malappuram district. The mere fact that petitioner’s parents had shifted their residence to the neighbouring State of Tamil Nadu did not mean that they lost their nativity in Kerala. Similarly petitioner cannot be held to be a “non-native” of Kerala for the reason that she was born and brought up in Tamil Nadu as a consequence of the shifting of residence of her parents to Tamil Nadu in connection with their employment.

8. Per contra, it is contended by the learned Standing Counsel for the Commission that petitioner cannot claim to be a native of Kerala, as she was not, admittedly, born or brought up in Kerala. She had her entire education in Tamil Nadu. In Ext.P2 application submitted by the petitioner in response to Ext.P1 notification, she had shown her permanent residential address at Peelamedu in Coimbatore. Petitioner would be entitled to get the benefit of caste reservation under the category of Ezhava, only if she is a native and permanent resident of Kerala. It is pointed out by the learned Standing Counsel that Ezhava community is a caste found exclusively in Kerala and therefore a native and permanent resident of Tamil Nadu cannot aspire to get the benefit of caste reservation

earmarked for Ezhavas in the State of Kerala.

9. In Indra Sawhney v. Union of India (1992 Supp. 3 SCC 217), His Lordship Justice Jeevan Reddy, while considering the meaning and the connotation of terminologies like class, community, caste etc. had referred to various earlier pronouncements of t