24. It is clear that in the matter of public appointments, the following principles are to be followed:

(1)  The appointments made without following the appropriate procedure under the rules/government circulars and without advertisement or inviting applications from the open market would amount to breach of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India.

(2)  Regularisation cannot be a mode of appointment.

(3)  An appointment made in violation of the mandatory provisions of the statute and in particular, ignoring the minimum educational qualification and other essential qualification would be wholly illegal. Such illegality cannot be cured by taking recourse to regularisation.

(4)  Those who come by back door should go through that door.

(5)  No regularisation is permissible in exercise of the statutory power conferred under Article 162 of the Constitution of India if the appointments have been made in contravention of the statutory rules.

(6)  The Court should not exercise its jurisdiction on misplaced sympathy.

(7)  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 been unlawfully benefited or wrongfully deprived of their selection, it will neither be possible nor necessary to issue individual show cause notice to each selectee. The only way out would be to cancel the whole selection.

(8)  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.