The Bench said: "An appointment made in violation of the mandatory provisions of the statute and in particular, ignoring the minimum educational and other essential qualifications would be wholly illegal. Such illegality cannot be cured by taking recourse to regularisation."

Writing the judgment, Mr. Justice Sathasivam said, "Those who come by the back door should go through that door. No regularisation is permissible in exercise of the statutory power conferred under Article 162 [executive power of the state] if the appointments have been made in contravention of the statutory rules."

The court should not exercise its jurisdiction on misplaced sympathy. "If the mischief played is so widespread and all pervasive, affecting the result, so as to make it difficult to pick out the persons who have unlawfully benefited or have been wrongfully deprived of their selection, it will be neither possible nor necessary to issue individual show-cause notices to each selectee. The only way out would be to cancel the whole selection."

The Bench said, "When the entire selection is stinking, conceived in fraud and delivered in deceit, individual innocence has no place and the entire selection has to be set aside."