OPINION OF THE COURT
VAN DUSEN, Circuit Judge.
Plaintiff-appellant, a registrant under the Selective Service Act of 1967, 50 App.U.S.C. §§ 451-467 (Supp. IV 1969), filed a verified complaint in the district court seeking relief in the nature of mandamus against the defendant members of Selective Service System Local Board No. 2 for New Jersey and such other relief as may seem just.1 An application for a temporary restraining order was made on notice to the United States Attorney. No responsive pleadings were filed and, after hearing argument, the district court entered on March 3, 1970, an order denying the temporary restraining order and dismissing the complaint “for lack of federal jurisdiction.” 2
The complaint claims jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (1964) (federal questions) and under 28 U.S.C. § 1361 (1964) (mandamus against a federal official). The district court dismissed because it considered Section 10(b) (3) of the Selective Service Act of 1967, 50 App. U.S.C. § 460(b) (3) (Supp. IV 1969), to be controlling.
Plaintiff’s complaint alleged that in 1967, while he was married but living apart from his first wife and son, he was reclassified from Class III-A 3 to Class IA.4 He and his first wife wrote to the Local Board advising that she and their son were dependent upon him, and he was reclassified III-A. On February 4, 1969, plaintiff and his first wife were divorced and on May 4, 1969, he remarried (p. 23a). The complaint alleges that he continued to support his first wife and his [1084]*1084infant son and is their sole means of support.5
On June 11, 1969, the Local Board wrote to plaintiff requesting that he appear before it on June 18,1969, to discuss his classification. Because he was in transit from New Jersey to Arizona he did not receive that letter until after June 23, 1969, when the Local Board mailed him a notice that he had been classified I-A (Exhibit A to Memorandum of Law In Opposition to Plaintiff’s Order to Show Cause). On July 23, 1969, his letter appealing that classification to the New Jersey Appeal Board was received by the Local Board (Exhibit B to above Memorandum of Law).6 On September 5, 1969, the Appeal Board concurred in the I-A classification of the Local Board and an induction order was mailed September 24, 1969, directing plaintiff to report for induction on October 8, 1969 (par. 8 of Complaint and Exhibit E to the above Memorandum of Law).
After the induction order issued, the plaintiff requested a personal appearance before the Local Board and submitted documentation, including affidavits of witnesses and medical history which the Local Board did not have before it at the time of its I-A classification. However, neither the complaint nor the letters and affidavits in the record state at any place that the plaintiff or his dependents developed any medical conditions after the notice of the induction order was mailed to plaintiff on September 24, 1969, or at any definite date prior thereto. The date for reporting for induction under the above order was postponed prior to October 8, 1969, and several times thereafter (pars. 21 & 22 of Complaint). By letter of January 5, 1970, the Local Board requested plaintiff “to appear for a meeting with [it] * * to discuss your case,” but after this meeting of January 15, it wrote plaintiff on January 21, 1970:
“This will advise you the recent evidence submitted concerning your case has been reviewed by this local board but it does not justify the reopening of your case and reconsideration of your present classification.
“You will therefore be subject to further processing for induction. Notices will be mailed to you in due course.”
Both plaintiff and his former wife requested an appeal from this letter of the Board. On January 27, 1970., the Execu[1085]*1085tive Secretary of the Local Board wrote plaintiff as follows:
“This will acknowledge receipt of your letter requesting another appeal, this is not possible, you appealed when you received your 1-A classification and was forwarded to the Appeal Board returned still classified I-A- as of June 18th, 1969.
“You had a non-statutory hearing which was requested, you have no further rights, you will be subject to call at our next Induction which is overdue pending the hearing.”
On February 19, 1970, plaintiff received a postponed date for induction, and this lawsuit followed. He alleges that the failure of the Selective Service System to afford him an appeal was erroneous as a matter of law, and that it should be corrected by mandamus.
Taking the above allegations as true, Judge Gibbons, by orders of March 3 and 6, 1970, and thereafter a panel of this court on March 16, 1970, granted temporary relief pending appeal, to consider the district court’s adverse determination of jurisdiction in light of Bucher v. Selective Service System, 421 F.2d 24 (3d Cir. 1970), and of Hunt v. Local Board No. 197, 438 F.2d 1128, No. 18,076 (3d Cir. 1971), then still sub judice.
The issue presented by this case is whether the district court was correct in holding that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction to entertain registrant’s action for pre-induction judicial review. A plaintiff has the burden of proving that a federal court, a court of limited jurisdiction, has subject matter jurisdiction, and there is a presumption that a federal court lacks jurisdiction in a particular case until it has been demonstrated that subject matter jurisdiction exists.7 F.R. Civ.P. 12(h) (3) provides:
“Whenever it appears by suggestion of the parties or otherwise that the court lacks jurisdiction of the subject matter, the court shall dismiss the action.” [Emphasis supplied.]
In view of these principles, this court has dismissed cases for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on its own motion on the basis of documents which were neither before the district court nor before this court. See, e. g., Berkowitz v. Philadel-delphia Chewing Gum Corp., 303 F.2d 585 (3d Cir. 1962).8
The power resides in the Congress to define the jurisdiction of federal courts.9 Congress has restricted the jurisdiction of federal courts over suits brought by registrants, prior to their induction, to challenge actions of the Selective Service System in section 10(b) (3) of the Military Selective Service Act of 1967, 50 U.S.C. App. § 460(b) (3) (Supp. III, 1967), which provides in relevant part:
“ *- * * isr0 judicial review shall be made of the classification or processing of any registrant by local boards, appeal boards, or the President, except as a defense to a criminal prosecution [1086]
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OPINION OF THE COURT
VAN DUSEN, Circuit Judge.
Plaintiff-appellant, a registrant under the Selective Service Act of 1967, 50 App.U.S.C. §§ 451-467 (Supp. IV 1969), filed a verified complaint in the district court seeking relief in the nature of mandamus against the defendant members of Selective Service System Local Board No. 2 for New Jersey and such other relief as may seem just.1 An application for a temporary restraining order was made on notice to the United States Attorney. No responsive pleadings were filed and, after hearing argument, the district court entered on March 3, 1970, an order denying the temporary restraining order and dismissing the complaint “for lack of federal jurisdiction.” 2
The complaint claims jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (1964) (federal questions) and under 28 U.S.C. § 1361 (1964) (mandamus against a federal official). The district court dismissed because it considered Section 10(b) (3) of the Selective Service Act of 1967, 50 App. U.S.C. § 460(b) (3) (Supp. IV 1969), to be controlling.
Plaintiff’s complaint alleged that in 1967, while he was married but living apart from his first wife and son, he was reclassified from Class III-A 3 to Class IA.4 He and his first wife wrote to the Local Board advising that she and their son were dependent upon him, and he was reclassified III-A. On February 4, 1969, plaintiff and his first wife were divorced and on May 4, 1969, he remarried (p. 23a). The complaint alleges that he continued to support his first wife and his [1084]*1084infant son and is their sole means of support.5
On June 11, 1969, the Local Board wrote to plaintiff requesting that he appear before it on June 18,1969, to discuss his classification. Because he was in transit from New Jersey to Arizona he did not receive that letter until after June 23, 1969, when the Local Board mailed him a notice that he had been classified I-A (Exhibit A to Memorandum of Law In Opposition to Plaintiff’s Order to Show Cause). On July 23, 1969, his letter appealing that classification to the New Jersey Appeal Board was received by the Local Board (Exhibit B to above Memorandum of Law).6 On September 5, 1969, the Appeal Board concurred in the I-A classification of the Local Board and an induction order was mailed September 24, 1969, directing plaintiff to report for induction on October 8, 1969 (par. 8 of Complaint and Exhibit E to the above Memorandum of Law).
After the induction order issued, the plaintiff requested a personal appearance before the Local Board and submitted documentation, including affidavits of witnesses and medical history which the Local Board did not have before it at the time of its I-A classification. However, neither the complaint nor the letters and affidavits in the record state at any place that the plaintiff or his dependents developed any medical conditions after the notice of the induction order was mailed to plaintiff on September 24, 1969, or at any definite date prior thereto. The date for reporting for induction under the above order was postponed prior to October 8, 1969, and several times thereafter (pars. 21 & 22 of Complaint). By letter of January 5, 1970, the Local Board requested plaintiff “to appear for a meeting with [it] * * to discuss your case,” but after this meeting of January 15, it wrote plaintiff on January 21, 1970:
“This will advise you the recent evidence submitted concerning your case has been reviewed by this local board but it does not justify the reopening of your case and reconsideration of your present classification.
“You will therefore be subject to further processing for induction. Notices will be mailed to you in due course.”
Both plaintiff and his former wife requested an appeal from this letter of the Board. On January 27, 1970., the Execu[1085]*1085tive Secretary of the Local Board wrote plaintiff as follows:
“This will acknowledge receipt of your letter requesting another appeal, this is not possible, you appealed when you received your 1-A classification and was forwarded to the Appeal Board returned still classified I-A- as of June 18th, 1969.
“You had a non-statutory hearing which was requested, you have no further rights, you will be subject to call at our next Induction which is overdue pending the hearing.”
On February 19, 1970, plaintiff received a postponed date for induction, and this lawsuit followed. He alleges that the failure of the Selective Service System to afford him an appeal was erroneous as a matter of law, and that it should be corrected by mandamus.
Taking the above allegations as true, Judge Gibbons, by orders of March 3 and 6, 1970, and thereafter a panel of this court on March 16, 1970, granted temporary relief pending appeal, to consider the district court’s adverse determination of jurisdiction in light of Bucher v. Selective Service System, 421 F.2d 24 (3d Cir. 1970), and of Hunt v. Local Board No. 197, 438 F.2d 1128, No. 18,076 (3d Cir. 1971), then still sub judice.
The issue presented by this case is whether the district court was correct in holding that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction to entertain registrant’s action for pre-induction judicial review. A plaintiff has the burden of proving that a federal court, a court of limited jurisdiction, has subject matter jurisdiction, and there is a presumption that a federal court lacks jurisdiction in a particular case until it has been demonstrated that subject matter jurisdiction exists.7 F.R. Civ.P. 12(h) (3) provides:
“Whenever it appears by suggestion of the parties or otherwise that the court lacks jurisdiction of the subject matter, the court shall dismiss the action.” [Emphasis supplied.]
In view of these principles, this court has dismissed cases for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on its own motion on the basis of documents which were neither before the district court nor before this court. See, e. g., Berkowitz v. Philadel-delphia Chewing Gum Corp., 303 F.2d 585 (3d Cir. 1962).8
The power resides in the Congress to define the jurisdiction of federal courts.9 Congress has restricted the jurisdiction of federal courts over suits brought by registrants, prior to their induction, to challenge actions of the Selective Service System in section 10(b) (3) of the Military Selective Service Act of 1967, 50 U.S.C. App. § 460(b) (3) (Supp. III, 1967), which provides in relevant part:
“ *- * * isr0 judicial review shall be made of the classification or processing of any registrant by local boards, appeal boards, or the President, except as a defense to a criminal prosecution [1086]*1086* * * after the registrant has responded either affirmatively or negatively to an order to report for induction * * *”10
I.
In Oestereich v. Selective Service System Local Board No. 11, 393 U.S. 233, 238, 89 S.Ct. 414, 21 L.Ed.2d 402 (1968), the Court rejected a literal interpretation of section 10(b) ,(3) on the ground, suggested by the Solicitor General, that “such literalness does violence to the clear mandate” 11 of the section of the Act granting ministerial students exemption from training and service under the Act. Oestereich involved an attack on an administrative procedure challenged as being invalid on its face, in a context where “it was plain on the record and on the face of the Act that an exemption had been granted.”12 The registrant had had his statutorily mandated exemption taken away through delinquency proceedings because of conduct unrelated to the merits of continuing the exemption, and the Solicitor General had confessed that the use by the Selective Service System of delinquency proceedings for that purpose was error. Since a construction of the Act requiring the registrant to submit to induction before obtaining judicial review would have been unnecessarily harsh under the circumstances, the Court concluded that pre-induction review was not precluded in cases of that type.
The Court in Oestereich by way of statutory construction engrafted an exception on the literal terms of section 10(b) (3) in order to reconcile the clash between explicit statutory mandates. Observing that entitlement to the claimed exemption was “in no way contested” 13 by the government, the Court noted that “[w]e would have a somewhat different problem were the contest over, say, the quantum of evidence necessary to sustain a Board’s classification.”14 This ease does not involve a clearly mandated defer[1087]*1087ment15 that has been taken away by improper means. Registrant claims that the local board should have given him a III-A deferment because of the extreme hardship 16 that would result to his divorced wife and child, as well as to his present wife, were he inducted. The right to this deferment, like the right to the conscientious objector exemption involved in Clark v. Gabriel, 393 U.S. 256, 89 S.Ct. 424, 21 L.Ed.2d 418 (1968), is not an unconditional right, but rather is dependent on local board action which, “inescapably involves a determination of fact and an exercise of judgment.”17 Here, there is no doubt that the local board had the authority to change registrant’s classification,18 and registrant does not challenge the legality of the procedure by which the change was effectuated. This situation is thus very similar to that in Clark v. Gabriel, where pre-induction review was held unavailable, the Court noting that:
Here the Board has exercised its statutory discretion to pass on a particular request for classification, “evaluating evidence and * * * determining whether a claimed exemption is deserved.” Oestereieh v. Selective Service Bd., supra, at 238, 89 S. Ct., at 416. A Local Board must make such a decision in respect of each of the many classification claims presented to it. To allow pre-induction judicial review of such determinations would be to permit precisely the kind of “litigious interruptions of procedures to provide necessary military manpower” (113 Cong.Rec. 15426 (report by Senator Russell on Conference Committee action)) which Congress sought to prevent when it enacted § 10(b) (3). 393 U.S. at 258-259, 89 S. Ct. at 426.
Thus we conclude that this complaint does not present a clash between clear mandates of the Act, and that further judicial erosion of the literalness of section 10(b) (3) is therefore unwarranted.
II.
The registrant alleges that the Local Board unlawfully refused to reopen his classification after he had received an induction order, and thereby unlawfully denied him the right to appeal that would follow a reopening.19 The regulation governing reopening after [1088]*1088receipt of an induction order provides in relevant part:
“1625.2 When Registrant’s Classification May Be Reopened and Considered Anew. — The local board may reopen and consider anew the classification of a registrant (a) upon the written request of the registrant, * * * any person who claims to be a dependent of the registrant * * * if such request is accompanied by written information presenting facts not considered when the registrant was classified, which, if true, would justify a change in the registrant’s classification ; * * * provided * * * the classification of a registrant shall not be reopened after the local board has mailed to such registrant an Order to Report for Induction * * * unless the local board first specifically finds there has been a change in the registrant’s status resulting from circumstances over which the registrant had no control.” 32 C.F.R. § 1625.2.
See Ehlert v. United States, 402 U.S. 99, 91 S.Ct. 1319, 28 L.Ed.2d 625 (opinion of 1971).
While it is not clear that a regulation promulgated by the President, on a subject not even mentioned in the Act, can so conflict with the Congressional mandate in section 10(b) (3) as to require a construction of section 10(b) (3) that would permit pre-induction judicial review, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has so held in Shea v. Mitchell, 137 U.S.App.D.C. 227, 421 F.2d 1162 (1970). Assuming, without deciding, that this court would accept the reasoning of Shea20 a different result is not called for in this case. Unlike the statutorily mandated exemption in Oestereieh, and the statutorily mandated deferment in Breen v. Selective Service Local Board No. 16, 396 U.S. 460, 90 S.Ct. 661, 24 L.Ed.2d 653 (1970), reopening after an induction order has been mailed is not a clear legal right. To the contrary, this court’s decision in Clark v. Volatile, 427 F.2d 7 (3d Cir. 1970), emphasizes that, in view of 32 C.F.R. § 1625.2, reopening after an induction order has been mailed is not required, indeed, is not permissible, until the Local Board specifically finds that there has been a change in the registrant’s status resulting from circumstances over which the registrant had no control.21 We do not believe that the [1089]*1089right to reopening after an induction order has been mailed, the existence of which is contingent upon the resolution of factual issues by the Local Board, presents such a clash with Section 10(b) (3) as to require a construction of Section 10(b) (3) that would permit pre-induction review on this record.22 Rather, this record23 presents a situation similar to that in Clark v. Gabriel, 393 U.S. 256, 89 S.Ct. 424, 21 L.Ed.2d 418 (1968), where the Court held that Section 10(b) (3) barred pre-induction review. Like the registrant in Gabriel, this registrant was not “unconditionally” entitled to have his classification reopened. And, as in Gabriel, “there is no doubt of the Board’s statutory authority to take action which [the registrant] challenges, and that action inescapably involves a determination of fact and an exercise of judgment.” See also Boyd v. Clark, 393 U.S. 316, 89 S.Ct. 553, 21 L.Ed.2d 511 (1969). This conclusion is consistent with the observation of this court in Bucher v. Selective Service System, 421 F.2d 24 (3d Cir. 1970), that “[section 10(b) (3)] bars judicial review only where there is a challenge to the System’s resolution of factual questions in the classification or processing of a draft registrant.” 421 F.2d at 27. Three other circuits have indicated their adoption of the result we reach here. Edwards v. Selective Service Local Board No. 111, 432 F.2d 287 (5th Cir. 1970); Bookout v. Thomas, 430 F.2d 1343 (9th Cir. 1970); Evans v. Local Board No. 73, 425 F.2d 323 (10th Cir. 1970); Sloan v. Local Board No. 1, 414 F.2d 125 (10th Cir. 1969).
Because the registrant in Hunt v. Local Board No. 197, 438 F.2d 1128, No. 18,076 (3d Cir., filed Feb. 5, 1971), had not received an induction order when he requested reclassification from the local board on the basis of changed conditions, the holding in Hunt is inapplicable to the facts presented by this record. Also, in Hunt, as in Oestereich, the parties conceded that the registrant was entitled to a classification that would render him [1090]*1090ineligible for induction, and there is no such concession in this case. ’
III.
The order to report for induction was mailed September 24, 1969. The registrant does not allege that it was ever specifically cancelled by the Local Board, but instead alleges that he was granted several postponements of the date to report for induction. The date on which the registrant was finally ordered to report for induction was March 4, 1970. The new random selection method of determining the order of selection of registrants became effective on December 1, 1969. The registrant seeks pre-induction review of his claim that the Local Board unlawfully refused to accord him the random selection procedure.
Assuming, without deciding, that Section 10(b) (3) does not bar pre-induction judicial review in cases where there is a conflict between that section and rights to procedures mandated by regulations or executive orders, this record does not establish that the regulation24 and executive order25 creating the random selection method conferred rights to the random selection procedure on the registrant. We have examined the contention of the registrant regarding his entitlement to the random selection method and find it without merit.26
IV.
Under the principles stated above, registrant is entitled to have judicial review of the merits of his claim to a III-A deferment, as well as of any denial of procedural fairness by the administrative authorities, after induction or refusal to be inducted by a petition for a writ of habeas corpus or entry of a not guilty plea in a criminal action. See note 10. Furthermore, registrant may apply to the State Director of Selective Service or the Director of Selective Service for a reopening as provided in 32 C.F.R. § 1625.3(a).
Accordingly, the March 3, 1970, order of the district court dismissing the complaint for lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter will be affirmed.