ISLAMABAD While serving show cause notice on Federations counsel Dr Abdul Basit for his professional misconduct, the Supreme Court on Monday rejected the objections against the bench constituted to hear petitions against the 18th Amendment. Earlier, the court had reserved its verdict after completing the hearing of objections against the constitution of the bench. The court was set to announce its verdict at 11:30 am. However, it delayed the ruling after receiving a letter from the Presidents Principal Secretary Salman Farooqui. When the SC larger bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry commenced the proceedings Monday morning, Dr Abdul Basit raised objections attributing them to the Federation, over the non-inclusion of Justice Zahid and presence of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry on the bench. Basit said the Chief Justice, who is a part of the Judicial Commission for the judges appointment, should not be hearing the 18th Amendment case and objected to the formation of the full court bench headed by the CJ. When the court asked Dr Basit who actually had raised the objections, he replied that Presidency had raised the objections. He said that after seeing the statement of Raza Rabbani in the media, he approached the Presidency to know the fact of the matter. Presidents Personal Secretary Salman Farooqui on telephone told him that the federation had objections to the composition of the bench. After hearing objections against the bench constituted to hear the constitutional petitions against the 18th Amendment, the court reserved the verdict. After the hearing again later during the day, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry read out the detailed ruling, saying all objections of the federation regarding the benchs constitution had been set aside. Earlier, an interesting situation occurred when the apex court was about to announce its verdict and the Registrar entered the courtroom with a letter in his hand and handed it to the Chief Justice, where every judge, one after another, read it. In his letter, Salman Farouqui had denied the objections attributed to him regarding the bench formation. The SC ruling said, The objections relating to the composition/constitution of the Bench and inclusion of the Chief Justice of Pakistan therein as raised by Dr A Basit, ASC, allegedly on behalf of the respondent-Federation of Pakistan are overruled being not in consonance with the Constitution and the law besides being devoid of merit. The court issued show-cause notice to Dr Abdul Basit for misleading the court. The order said, In this view of the matter, it, prima facie, appears that Dr Basit had committed professional misconduct by making a statement, which was false and which he had also admitted to be false. A notice was issued to Dr Basit to show cause why he should not be suspended from practice/removed from the roll of Advocates/Senior Advocates of the court. In response to that, Abdul Basit rose up saying he was mistaken in connection with his client and pleaded he be heard afresh. The court affirmed he would be given the chance. Fifteen constitutional petitions were filed against some clauses of the 18th Amendment. In particular, they challenge the formation of the judicial commission under the 18th Amendment to be against the basic structure of the Constitution and against the judiciarys independence. The court will resume its proceedings again today (Tuesday).