ISLAMABAD, Dec 11: Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar has convened a meeting of all judges of the Supreme Court on Monday.

“It is a routine meeting and the agenda item to be taken up during the full court involves a host of administrative and financial matters, including heavy backlog,” an official told Dawn, while dismissing speculations that the meeting had anything to do with mounting pressure on the chief justice from different quarters to resign.

However, legal circles believe that the meeting is being held against the backdrop of a constitutional deadlock between parliament and the court regarding a probe by the National Assembly’s standing committee on education into an increase in the marks of Justice Dogar’s daughter in intermediate examination.

The Islamabad High Court has sealed the relevant record of the Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (FBISE) and a petition has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking to unseat the committee’s chairman.

A full court reference was called by the chief justice on March 18 to consider matters relating to welfare of retired judges.

Meanwhile, former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), Mohammad Ikram Chaudhry, has suggested that the chairman of the committee may call the chief justice to the hearing or ask him to submit a written reply to the allegations of misusing his office.

In a letter in response to questions raised by Chaudhry Abid Sher Ali, the lawyer said the issuance of notice or otherwise would not infringe upon the status or rights of the chief justice because it would not relate to the conduct of his duty but to his conduct as the father of a student.

He said that under the Constitution, the court could not stop the parliamentary committee from carrying out its constitutional functions.