“I filed the petition on Saturday following the formation of a full court on the government’s review petition on the NRO,” the attorney general told Dawn on Sunday.

He pleaded that the court should delay the hearing till its ruling on review petitions against the NRO verdict.

A five-judge bench is scheduled to hear the case regarding the implementation of the Supreme Court’s NRO verdict. There are two cases on the NRO in the Supreme Court.

The petition relating to implementation of the verdict was initiated after the Supreme Court took suo motu notice of the matter while hearing the case of Ahmed Riaz Sheikh, an official of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

The second petition relating to the fate of NRO cases was taken up by the court after the government had sought a review.

The attorney-general has requested the court to first decide the fate of the NRO and then the case of its implementation.

Cases against President Asif Ali Zardari and other leaders and bureaucrats were reopened after the scrapping of the NRO.

During the last hearing of the implementation case, the court had asked the law secretary to send a summary to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani seeking permission for requesting a Swiss court to reopen alleged money laundering cases against the president.

Legal experts said the law ministry might have sought an adjournment to avoid court action because apparently it had not prepared the summary.

The court had rejected an earlier summary sent by the government’s legal wing to the prime minister and called for a fresh executive decision by him on the matter.