IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PAKISTAN 
(APPELLATE JURISDICTION) 
 
PRESENT: 
 
 
 
 
 
MR. JUSTICE GULZAR AHMED 
MR. JUSTICE UMAR ATA BANDIAL 
MR. JUSTICE MAQBOOL BAQAR 
 
 
CIVIL APPEAL NOS.1255 AND 1256 OF 2012 
(Against judgment dated 11.9.2012 of the 
Lahore High Court, Multan Bench passed in 
ICA Nos.104 and 105 of 2011) 
 
 
Zarai Traqiati Bank Ltd.  
 
 
 
… 
Appellant 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
(In both cases) 
 
 
 
 
Versus 
 
Muhammad Asim Rafique and others 
 
(In CA 1255/12) 
Muhammad Farooq & others  
 
 
(In CA 1256/12) 
… 
Respondents 
 
 
For the Appellant:  
MianMuhammad Hanif, ASC. 
 
 
 
 
Mr. Mehr Khan Malik, AOR. 
 
 
 
 
 
For the respondents: 
Mr. Muhammad Suleman Bhatti, ASC. 
Date of hearing 
 
16.2.2016 
 
 
 
 
ORDER 
MAQBOOL BAQAR, J.-In response to an advertisement 
placed by the appellant-bank in the daily “Dawn” for the post of 
“Management Trainee Officer”. The respondents applied, they passed 
the written test and were selected in their interview, however, instead 
of issuing appointment letters, the appellant bank offered them a 
contract for on the job training as “Management Trainee” for a period 
of two years on payment of Rs.16,000/- per month and instead of the 
word ‘salary’ the word ‘stipend’ was used for such payment. Clause 
vii of the contract provided that the said contract will not constitute 
employee/employer relationship between the trainee and the 
appellant-bank, whereas clause ix provided for extension of the 
training beyond the original period of two years and clause xi 
stipulated that the training does not offer any guarantee of regular 
employment in the appellant-bank. The contract, however, through 
clause iv provided 30 working days annual leave. The respondents, in 
pursuance of the above were inducted in the appellant-bank. They 
were posted in different branches of the bank as Grade-II Officers 
and as Managers also. They were assigned the functions such as 
authorized to sanction loan, negotiate financial facility with the 
customers, evaluate the securities and to recovery the finance 
granted to the customers and thus were functioning as/and 
discharging their duties with power and authority as could be of any 
other officer/employee of the equivalent position in the bank. Upon 
expiry of the above contract, after the prescribed period of two years, 
the contract on 26.5.2010 was extended for a period of about seven 
months up to 31.12.2016. However, neither was the employment of 
the respondents regularized nor were their contracts extended 
thereafter and the bank instead advertised vacancies for appointment 
in place of the respondents.  
2. 
 
We have noted that not only the applications that were 
invited by the appellant-bank and made by the respondents were, “to 
fill the positions of MTOs for operations of the Bank in Finance and 
Accounts”. To catch the attention of the prospective candidates to the 
advertisement, in fact “Career for Management Trainee Officers” was 
printed on the top of the advertisement in bold letters and 
offer/advertisement 
also 
promised 
“payment 
of 
competitive 
remuneration”. From the official summaries placed by the appellant-
bank through CMA No.989 of 2015, also clearly show that the 
applications were in fact invited for the “posts of Management 
Trainee” and that in response to the advertisement, the appellant-
bank received 8392 applications which were short listed to 1942. The 
candidates were further short listed for written test and thus 231 
candidates were put to such test. Though the candidate securing 
45% and above marks in the test were to be considered eligible for 
interview, however, keeping in view the vacancy position only 30 
candidates were called for interview conducted by the Designated 
Committee and on the recommendations at of the Committee, the 
competent authority decided that the respondents may be considered 
for selection in the Head Office and the fields and after that they may 
be preferred for posting in concerned zone with high merit. The 
summary/office note further reveals that the above trainees were to 
be accepted for on job training initially for a period of two years and 
were to be considered for regular appointment on expiry of contract 
period upon satisfactory performance and availability of vacancies 
and further that in case any management trainee fails to join, the 
next candidate with high merit may be offered the position for 
posting. The respondents were also required to furnish medical 
fitness certificate issued by the authorized medical practitioners.  
(The Federal Government imposed ban) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judge  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judge 
Islamabad the, 
14th June 2013 
(Aamir Sh.) 
‘NOT APPROVED FOR REPORTING’