JUDGMENT

V. D. TULZAPURKAR, J. (for himself and on behalf of M. H. Beg, C. J., P. N. Bhagwati, V. R. Krishna Iyer, S. Murtaza Fazal Ali and Jaswant Singh, JJ. (Majority view) :— These two appeals by special leave - one by the State of Kerala (Original Respondent No. 1) and the other by M/s. K. Sukumaran Nair and O. J. Antony (Original Respondents Nos. 3 and 4, being Judicial Officers on the Criminal Side) - are directed against the judgment and order of the Kerala High Court of February 8, 1974 in O. P. (Writ Petn.) No. 3639 of 1973 whereby the High Court quashed two Government Orders dated February 12, 1973 and September 18, 1973 (being Exhs. P1 and P2) bifurcating the Judicial Service of the Kerala State into two Wings - Civil and Criminal - and the two sets of Statutory Rules, the Kerala Civil Judicial Service Rules 1973 and the Kerala Criminal Judicial Service Rules 1973 (being Annexures III and IV to the additional counter-affidavit of the State dated November 26, 1973) framed for the two Wings of the Judicial Service thus formed, as being violative of Arts, 14 and 16 of the Constitution.

2. The challenge to the constitutional validity of the two Government Orders Exhs. P1 and