On Monday, Supreme Court ruled an extension of its interim stay order the the Madras High Court's verdict. As per it the Sterlite Industries were supposed to shut down their copper smelter plant in Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu.

Second week of December has been fixed as the time when the second level of hearing will be done by the apex court. Since then, the stay order will continue to be operative.

Sterlite Industries is a part of Anil Agarwal's controversial group, Vedanata Resources. They had gone to the SC on October 14 appealing against a high court order.

The Madras HC had directed the immediate shut down of the plant on October 12 sitting environment issues as the reason.

The company has already spent close to Rs. 500 crore in expansion of the Tuticorin plant. Vedanta is also into the trouble because of its project in Orissa which has been stopped by the Union Environment Ministry.

In 2009, Sterlite had announced an additional investment to double its copper smeltering capacity. It wanted to make its capacity 800,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) and had also st up a captive plant of 160 MW in the area.