ISLAMABAD: The counsel for the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that before issuing contempt notice to his client, the court should have determined how the media got hold of a confidential letter written by him to the president.

Advocate Latif Khosa was pleading an intra-court appeal instituted by NAB chief retired admiral Fasih Bukhari before a five-member bench headed by Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and comprising Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, Justice Muhammad Ather Saeed and Justice Iqbal Hameed-ur-Rehman.

Admiral Bukhari is facing contempt charges for writing the letter to President Asif Ali Zardari in which he accused the court of pressurising NAB in the cases relating to rental power projects (RPP).

The court directed its office to produce complete record of the case during next hearing. However, the court refused to grant stay against framing of charges by a different and smaller bench of three judges.

Justifying the contents of the letter in which the apex court had been accused of interfering into the RPP investigations, Mr Khosa said the court had ignored the parameter of interference into the functions of statutory agencies as laid down in previous verdicts.