Fraud vitiates every decision, and equitable relief cannot be granted to perpetuate illegality.

Anil Kumar Upadhyay, J.

1. In this Letters Patent Appeal, the appellant has assailed the elaborate judgment dated 19.7.2017 passed by the learned Single Judge in CWJC No. 11915 of 2016.

2. The writ petition was filed by the appellant against the decision of the respondent-Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Corporation’) initially against the show cause notice dated 13.6.2016, later on the appellant filed I.A. No. 7268 of 2016 challenging the order of termination dated 31.8.2017 passed by the Corporation.

3. The Corporation issued show cause notice to the appellant on detection of fraud on verification from the Bihar School Examination Board in the matriculation certificate of the writ petitioner used for obtaining the distributorship, matriculation certificate was found to be forged and fabricated and not related to the appellant but of one Surendra Karmali, S/o Jeet Ram Karmali. The appellant thereafter filed reply to the show cause notice during the pendency of the writ application. The appellant has submitted her reply as follows:

(i) She never had the occasion of verifying the veracity of matriculation certificate as it always remained with her elder brother.

(ii) She further stated that she was never informed by her late father or elder brother about veracity of matriculation certificate.

(iii) She stated that as a girl candidate she had never fabricated the marks sheet or she was informed by her father or brother that it was fabricated.

(iv) She also stated that neither knowingly nor unknowingly any fake or fabricated document was submitted nor she ever tried to mislead the Corporation in order to get distributorship.

4. On consideration of the show cause reply and on arriving at the conclusion that there is falsehood in the submission of certificate at the time of award of distributorship, the Corporation decided to terminate the distributorship.

5. In the aforesaid backdrop of the fact the writ petition was heard and the Writ Court on the basis of submissions and notes of argument filed by the appellant formulated six points for consideration which are as follows:

“1. The first issue has been raised by the petitioner that the respondent Nos. 2 and 3 maliciously with an ulterior motive has made a complaint though they are not the public figure having any past history to espouse such nature of issue of public domain with respect to any private individual.

2. The second point is required to be gone into as has been claimed that the Corporation has not followed fair and proper procedure maintained transparency, failed to observe principle of natural justice while taking decision against the petitioner.

3. The third point has been raised that the credential of the petitioner attached with the application were examined by the Corporation at several stages by different agencies and only, thereafter the dealership was awarded to the petitioner, after long lapse of time, scraping the agreement, on the basis of having filed a forged and fabricated matriculation certificate, is not sustainable in law in view of the fact that the Corporation is backed by strong batteries of employee, having all when withal to have made scrutiny of credential, failure to identify defect in the certificate cannot be a basis of scrap the agreement and deprive the petitioner in the right of business.

4. The forth point is that the undertaking on affidavit which has been obtained from the petitioner with respect to having found any wrong, the Corporation will be at liberty to terminate the agreement has been taken in terrorem, is not part of brochure, cannot be a basis of termination of the agreement.

5. The fifth point is that the Corporation has not tried to find out the passing of matriculation examination by the petitioner as a private candidate rather an enquiry has been conducted in a peculiar strange manner with respect to Surendra Karmali and never any effort was made find out about the petitioner to have passe