The legal battle over whether a former royal servant can be named by the media will continue today.

Lawyers for the former servant, whose identity The Guardian newspaper wants to reveal, asked a High Court judge yesterday to hear the case behind closed doors.

The Guardian was about to name the individual who had obtained an injunction against the Mail on Sunday last weekend when he won another court order on Monday night to prevent his name being revealed.

Desmond Browne, for the former servant, told Mr Justice Tugendhat yesterday that he was applying to continue the injunction granted over the phone on Monday by Mr Justice Henriques.

He said: "My application is that this hearing is going to have to be in private and in order to make that application I must - regrettably, the Press may feel - ask your Lordship to go into private."

Before asking the media to leave - for an unspecified period of time - the judge said that, given the amount of public interest, he was very reluctant to direct that the entirety of the injunction hearing should be conducted in private.

But he indicated that the hearing would remain behind closed doors until 11am today at the earliest.

On Sunday, The Mail on Sunday ran a front page story saying that a former Palace servant had brought an injunction against it.

The move came after lengthy interviews conducted by the newspaper with a second former royal servant whose story was supported by a sworn affidavit.

The Mail on Sunday has also vowed to fight its injunction.

This was granted after a three-hour hearing on Saturday which ended with a judge making an order preventing publication of any details of the story.

This was immediately followed by a written demand from a senior royal that there should be no publication of the story, said the Mail on Sunday.