New Delhi, June 04: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to grant an urgent hearing into a plea filed by families of those killed in the police firing during the anti-Sterlite protests in Tamil Nadu's Thoothukudi.

The apex court did not specify a date for the next hearing and said it would hear the matter after the vacations. The appeal filed by the relatives sought a grant to allow a doctor of their choice to be roped into the board of doctors to conduct the post-mortem procedures of the remaining six deceased.

Post-mortem of seven of the deceased has been already conducted. Agitations against the Vedanta group-owned Sterlite industries have been going on for months now, with people demanding a ban on it due to the various environmental threats it posed. The protests took a violent turn on May 22 when police opened fire on the protesters, which resulted in the death of 13 people and injured 102.