ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has ruled that beneficial employment policies must be implemented equitably for all and not through “cherry-picking”.
A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and comprising Justice Syed Hassan Azhar Rizvi and Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi, issued a judgment on a matter concerning employment opportunities for the sons and daughters of in-service, deceased and retired employees of the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP).
The court, having heard the case at the Karachi Registry on July 17, 2025, set aside a November 20, 2024 judgment of the Sindh High Court (LHC). It directed the NBP president to decide the petitioners’ applications within three months under the policy that was in force when the applications were filed.
“If the management circulates any beneficial employment or recruitment policy, then such policy should have been implemented equitably and even-handedly across the board and not through cherry-picking to deprive its benefits to the deserving contenders,” stated the seven-page judgment, authored by Justice Mazhar.
The court noted the petitioners’ grievance that their applications, filed in 2019 and 2022 under the then-prevailing 2011 policy (amended up to 2016), were ignored without consideration.
It held that subsequent judgments, including the General Post Office case cited by the respondents, would have no retrospective effect to upset that policy — an aspect ignored by the high court.
The Supreme Court converted the civil petition into an appeal, allowed it and remanded the matter to the NBP president for a fresh decision to be communicated to the petitioners.
