JUDGMENT P.D. Dinakaran, CJ. The appellant-company is a Government of India Undertaking. 2. According to the learned Counsel for the appellant, the appellant-company had advertised for certain vacancies in the category of general workmen at Bangalore, L.P.G Plant. The respondents were among the 24 candidates selected and appointed after taking required bond/ undertaking from them. 2.2 As per the corporations policy the information produced by the respondents was reviewed and the documents were forwarded to the concerned school colleges for verification regarding proof of age, qualification etc. The school authorities have confirmed in writing that the information provided by the respondents was either false or the documents have been fabricated. In certain cases, the schools do not exist in the address given by the respondents. Thereupon, the appellant issued show cause notice to the respondents and the respondents have admitted their mistake in the reply to the show-cause notices and prayed for condoning the same. Therefore the appellant implementing the condition of the bond/undertaking terminated the services of the respondents. 2.3 Aggrieved by the said termination, the respondents raised an industrial dispute before the Industrial Tribunal in C.R.No.57/1997 and the Industrial Tribunal by award dated 23.06.2004, directed reinstatement of the respondents whose services were terminated as back as on 25.05.1992 with a further direction to pay 25 per cent of backwages from the date of termination till the date of reinstatement with continuity of service. Aggrieved by the said award the appellant approached this Court in Writ Petition No. 34818 of 2004 and the learned Single Judge of this Court after hearing both sides dismissed the writ petition. Aggrieved by the said order of the learned Single Judge, the appellant has preferred this writ appeal. 3. We have heard learned Counsel for the parties and perused the records. 4. The question that is in issue in this appeal is, whether the appellant could have terminated the services of the respondents herein sans enquiry, solely basing the order of retrenchment on the admission made by the workmen that they had furnished false information at the time of their joining service. 4.1 The appellant has relied on the decision of the Apex Court in the case of A. Umarani Vs. Registrar, Co-operative Societies and Others reported in (2004) 7 SCC 112 . 4.1 The appellant has relied on the decision of the Apex Court in the case of A. Umarani Vs. Registrar, Co-operative Societies and Others reported in (2004) 7 SCC 112 . It is a case wherein several appointments were made in contravention of mandatory provisions of the Act and statutory rules framed thereunder and ignoring essential qualifications. It is in those circumstances the Court held that such appointments are illegal and the State cannot invoke power under Article 162 of the Constitution of India to regularise such appointments. That was a case in which a large number of workmen were appointed without having the requisite educational qualification and the reservation policy was also not followed by the societies and the recruitments made were beyond the permissible cadre strength. As the said appointments were held to be per se illegal, the Court observed that the question of giving an opportunity to those workmen to put forth their case before termination of their services is unnecessary. 4.2 The management has also relied on the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Secretary, A.P. Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Vs. Pindiga Sridhar and Others reported in 2007 AIR SCW 2074 wherein it was held that the services a person who has secured appointment on compassionate ground by playing fraud on the department, can be terminated without affording opportunity of hearing. 5. But herein the primal question for consideration is whether such a view could be taken in the present case where the workmen have taken up a defence that the letters given by them owning up that they had given false information with fabricated documents were obtained by coercion and those letters were written by them to the dictate of the management under threat of termination. When this is the factual position obtaining in this appeal, the very ground on which their services could have been terminated is no longer available as it becomes a disputed question of fact. When this is the factual position obtaining in this appeal, the very ground on which their services could have been terminated is no longer available as it becomes a disputed question of fact. 5.1 In the light of the fact that the very letters given by the workmen are now sought to be denied on the ground that they were obtained by the management by playing fraud and by coercion, these cannot be made the basis for retrenchment of the workmen and if the management wanted to proceed against them for the alleged misconduct, the only course open to them was to follow the procedure laid down in the Industrial Disputes Act, establish the misconduct and then proceed to impose punishment. Admittedly, the management having not done so, the several decisions relied on by the learned Counsel for the appellant in support of his contention that the workmen were not entitled to the benefit of a hearing as the punishment imposed is solely based on the admission made by the workmen, is not of any assistance to the management. We do not have any quarrel with the principles laid down in those decisions but only they do not apply to the present facts of the case since a basic fact essential for applying the said principle to the case on hand is non-existent. We are supported by the decision of the Apex Court in the case of Gayathri Devi Vs. Shahipal Singh reported in (2005) 5 SCC 527 wherein it is held that as a general proposition the proposition that fraud unravels everything is right, but fraud must necessarily be pleaded and proved. 5.2 In the facts and circumstances of the case, we find in the absence of a regular enquiry under the Act, the order passed by the management cannot be sustained and the learned Single Judge was right in quashing the impugned order. We find no reason to differ with the view of the learned Single Judge. The writ appeal also fails and is accordingly dismissed.