Nooty Ramamohana Rao, J.

All these four writ petitions raise a common question relating to the recruitment to the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division) in the Tamil Nadu State Judicial Service, are heard together as can be disposed of by this common judgment.

2. Heard Mr. V. Raghavachari, Mr. R. Singaravelan for Mr. P.S. Amalraj, Mr. V. Lakshminarayanan, Mr. G. Sankaran, learned counsel for the respective petitioners, Mr. P.S. Sivashanmugasundaram, learned Special Government Pleader and Mr. R. Prashal Kumar, learned Additional Government Pleader for the State in the respective writ petitions, Ms. C.N.G. Niraimathi, learned Standing Counsel appearing for the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission and Mr. C.T. Mohan, Mr. R. Vijayakumar and Mr. V. Vijay Shankar, learned Standing Counsel appearing for the High Court in the respective writ petitions.

3. Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (henceforth called the Public Service Commission) has notified on 26.8.2014 the process of recruitment to the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division) proposing to fill up 162 vacancies. The written examination was relatively conducted on 01.11.2014 and 02.11.2014. Applications were invited only through online mode upto 21.9.2014. The application form contained the following column :

"Criminal Case (Registered/pending/punishment awarded) : and quot;

4. All the writ petitioners, who are practising advocates, have responded to the Notification. The petitioner in W.P. No. 37769 of 2016 furnished information against the aforementioned column as under :

"Yes/No/No"

whereas the petitioners in all the other writ petitions have furnished the following answer:

"Not applicable"

5. The results were published on 20.2.2015 and all of them have fared well to be short-listed for verification of certificates for provisional selection and they were all notified of their provisional selection on 15.6.2015. The State Government, through their orders contained in G.O.4D.NO.49 Home (Courts-I) Department dated 20.8.2015 have selected and appointed 138 candidates as Civil Judges (Junior Division). Not finding the names of the writ petitioners in the said order of appointment, enquiries were made and representations have been submitted to find out the reasons as to why they were not appointed notwithstanding the provisional selection. The Public Service Commission, through its memo dated 06.10.2016, has communicated the reasons for non selection of the writ petitioners concerned. Calling in question this memorandum, the present writ petitions came to be instituted.

6. Uniformly, the High Court has decided to reject the candidature of the writ petitioners for recruitment as Civil Judge (Junior Division) and based upon the decision of the High Court, the Public Service Commission has communicated the rejection of the candidature of the writ petitioners concerned for appointment as Civil Judge (Junior Division). It is also uniformly set out that the involvement of the candidate in one criminal case or the other either before commencement of the recruitment process or during the process of recruitment or after completion of the recruitment process, as the case may be, has come to light and hence, the candidature of the writ petitioners has been rejected.

7. The question that is raised before us is the same, which has fallen for consideration time and time again in one form or the other namely whether involvement in a criminal case is an automatic fact or for disqualification of the candidature itself. This very question has fallen for consideration on several occasions before this Court as well as before various other Courts as well as before the Supreme Court. Various views have been expressed by various Courts for a long period of time and the spectrum ranges from

(i) involvement in a criminal case is itself a disqualification;

(ii) it all depends upon the nature of selection;

(iii) it all depends upon the nature of exoneration secured in the criminal case; and

(iv) it depends upon th