Justices Mansoor Ali Shah, Ayesha Malik, and Aqeel Abbasi have written a letter to the chief justice of Pakistan regarding the “lack of scheduling” for the constitutional and regular benches in the Supreme Court, sources said on Tuesday.

The three judges also sent a letter to the seven-judge constitutional bench head Justice Aminuddin Khan.

The correspondence highlights that Justice Abbasi was included in the bench on January 16, having previously heard cases at the Sindh High Court. The SC judges expressed their “discontent” over the case not being fixed for hearing by January 20.

It references a meeting of the Practice and Procedure Committee scheduled for January 17.

Sources added that Justice Shah informed the committee that his viewpoint was already on record and declined to attend the committee meeting. He stated that there was no need for him to appear, asserting that the committee could have formed the previous bench and fixed the hearing for January 20.

The SC judge emphasised that the failure to schedule the case amounted to a “disregard for judicial orders,” equating this inaction to a deviation from the law. He classified the situation as “contempt of court in his letter.”

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This comes a day after a three-member SC bench issued a show cause notice to the additional registrar for not fixing a case related to the authority of the SC bench for hearing.

A three-member bench comprising Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Ayesha Malik, and Justice Aqeel Abbasi met on Monday to hear a case regarding the powers of constitutional benches and regular benches.

At one point in the hearing, Justice Shah said: “I am a member of the judges’ committee, yet I was completely unaware of the judges’ committee meeting.”