ISLAMABAD, Sept 7: The Supreme Court will open on Monday when six benches will resume work after three-month summer vacations.

The benches, all sitting at the principal seat of the court here, are not expected to take some high-profile case in the first two weeks despite rulings by the courts that those would be fixed for the second week of September.

Dr Aslam Khaki’s constitutional petition seeking disqualification of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s 34 parliamentarians and 34 members of the provincial assemblies is not listed.

The All Pakistan Newspapers Society’s petition challenging the Seventh Wage Board Award is also not in the list.

A bench presided over by Chief Justice Shaikh Riaz Ahmad, however, will take up cases against former prime minister Benazir Bhutto on Tuesday, in which she is accused of making illegal appointments in the Pakistan International Airlines.

The same bench will take up on Thursday a constitutional petition calling in question the role of different government bodies in the environmental disaster due to the breaking of a Greek ship at the coast.

The Supreme Court had decided to avail the summer vacations in full after a number of years. It had been the practice for many years that during the vacations benches were formed mostly at the registries in Peshawar, Lahore, Karachi and Quetta.

The courts had closed on June 8, when tension between the bar and the bench was at its height.

The Supreme Court had closed down the offices of the SC Bar Association in its building and the lawyers had taken to the roads in protest. The bar offices have not yet opened.

The bar is persisting with its demand that the judges should return the “dubious gift” of three years extension in their retirement age.

The judges are not acceding to the bar’s demand and the extension period of three of them in the Supreme Court and four in the high courts has begun.

The bench presided over by the chief justice will comprise Justice Qazi Mohammad Farooq and Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar.

The second bench will be comprise Justice Munir A. Sheikh, Justice Hamid Ali Mirza and Justice Faqir Mohammad Khokhar. The third bench, presided over by Justice Nazim Hussain Siddiqui, will include Justice Mian Mohammad Ajmal and Justice Falak Sher. The fourth bench will consist of Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and Justice Tanvir Ahmad Khan. The fifth bench will comprise Justice Syed Deedar Hussain Shah and Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday. The sixth bench will consist of Justice Javed Iqbal, Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza Khan and Justice Karamat Nazir Bhandari.