The Supreme Court formally allowed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry to contest his suspension by military ruler Musharraf on March 9 -- a challenge that government lawyers have argued against strenuously.

Chaudhry has fought his ouster both in the courts and also in the streets, leading rallies and sparking an opposition movement that presents key US ally Musharraf with the biggest crisis of his eight years in power.

The Supreme Court in May suspended an inquiry by a panel of judges into the charges against the chief justice, after he alleged that it was biased and that he should not be suspended during the process.

The court has been listening to legal arguments for the past month about whether to admit some two dozen petitions including Chaudhry's. The others have been filed by lawyers.

"We will right now only hear and decide the petition of Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry," presiding judge Khalilur Rehman Ramday said.

"In a sense it is a victory for us that they have started hearing the petition. We were 99.9 percent sure that they would not reject it," Tariq Mahmood, senior counsel for the chief justice, told AFP.

Chaudhry denies charges that he got a senior police job for his son and that he used official cars and helicopters that he was not entitled to.

Critics allege that Musharraf wants to sideline the chief justice to eliminate legal obstacles to his reelection as president-in-uniform, most likely in September.

The constitution says he should quit as army chief this year.

Law Minister Wasi Zafar however said that the government would file a second set of allegations against Chaudhry, because the judge's lawyers had politicised the issue instead of going through the courts.

"It has become the duty and constitutional obligation of the government to file a fresh reference (complaint)," Zafar said. "Total responsibility for the second reference against the chief justice lies with his lawyers."