LAHORE, Jan 7: The Lahore High Court issued notices to the attorney-general for Tuesday in a petition challenging the recent appointment of four Supreme Court judges and an urgent application seeking stay of their swearing-in.

The petition has been filed by Advocate AK Dogar and according to the division bench seized of it, he had agreed on Jan 3, the last date of hearing, not to press for stay when it issued preadmission notice to the AG in the main petition for an unspecified date.

The bench, which was reconstituted in the meanwhile to replace Justice Syed Jamshed Ali with Justice Mian Saqib Nisar to sit with Justice Chaudhry Ijaz Ahmad as the senior member, told Mr Dogar on Monday that he could not re-agitate a matter he had not pressed three days ago. He should first seek review of the court order.

The lawyer denied having agreed to drop the matter of stay. He would have no case if he did not seek an order against the administration of oath to the judges whose appointment he had challenged, he said.

The bench called Deputy Attorney-General Sher Zaman Khan and Khwaja Saeeduz Zafar and issued notices to the AG, indicating that the main petition may also be disposed of along with the stay plea before the swearing in of the four judges on Jan 10.

The petitioner was earlier allowed to implead all four elevated judges instead of two and to allege that the chief justice was not consulted in their appointment.