ISLAMABAD, Jan 12: Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry turned down on Thursday a request of Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq for adjustment of time since he is supposed to appear before the judicial commission probing the memogate scandal as well as the Supreme Court at the same time on Monday next.

The Supreme Court's rejection of the request through a letter by the AG came at a time when a seven-judge bench is already scheduled to commence hearing on the NRO implementation case from Jan 16.He is required to inform the court about which option out of a total of six outlined by the Supreme Court earlier should be considered by the bench comprising Justice Nasirul Mulk, Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany, Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, Justice Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry, Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Muhammad Ather Saeed.

This will be the same time when the AG is supposed to appear before the three-judge judicial commission constituted under the orders of the Supreme Court to investigate the veracity of the controver-sial memorandum which sparked a controversy in the country In its order on the AG's letter, the chief justice said: 'Both matters are very important and have already been fixed by the Commission and this Court, therefore, any order passed for adjustment would likely to cause a delay in the respective proceedings.

The seven-judge bench was constituted after the fivejudge bench headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa in a hard hitting order referred the matter back to the chief justice on January 10. The court had shown the desirabil-ity to be heard the matter by a larger Supreme Court bench on Jan 16 due to importance of the case. Not only the case was sent back to the chief justice, but the court had also asked the AG to get instructions from the government and argue why it should not exercise any of the six or all the options it laid out in the order.

The AG, Secretary of Law Masood Chistie, Chairman of National Accountability Bureau Admiral (retd) Faseeh Bukhari and NAB Prosecutor General K. K. Agha are required to appear in person on the next date of hearing.