Hon’ble Vivek Kumar Birla, J.—All these writ petitions involve common facts, questions of law and the controversy to be decided, hence, as agreed by the learned counsel for the parties, they have been heard together and are being decided by a common judgment.

2. Heard Sri Ashok Khare, learned Senior Advocate and Sri Seemant Singh, Advocate for the petitioners and Sri Shashi Nandan, learned Senior Advocate, Sri Gajendra Pratap, learned Senior Advocate, Sri R.K. Ojha, learned Senior Advocate, Sri Shailendra, Sri K.M. Asthana, Sri Abhishek Srivastava, learned counsel for the newly impleaded respondents and Sri Vijai Bahadur Singh, learned Advocate General assisted by Dr. Y.K. Srivastava and Sri Udai Pratap Singh, learned Standing Counsel. Other counsel have adopted their arguments.

3. The writ petitions as per the relief sought can be broadly divided into three groups. In the first group of writ petitions, a writ of mandamus commanding the respondents to exclude the candidates who have used whitener/blade in their answer script (OMR sheets) of the main examination for sele