The Johor High Court today has granted a stay against the acquisition of 15 pieces of lands in the Pengerang area.

The land for the construction of the Petronas Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (Rapid).

Jimmy Puah, the lawyer for the landowners, said they filed the judicial review application to challenge the acquisition made under the National Land Code last September.

They named the Kota Tinggi Land office and the Johor government as the respondents.

"Hearing was fixed in December and early January however, we lost. In June, we applied for a temporary stay of order pending appeal.

"Today the court granted the stay after the Johor state government did not file any affidavit to object to our application," said the lawyer.

Johor High Court judicial commissioner M Gunalan agreed to grant the stay order pending the disposal of the appeal.

Besides Puah, the other lawyer acting for the landowners is Hassan Karim.

The 15 landowners come from areas in Sungai Kapal, Kampung Jawa, and Teluk Empang which are among the areas affected by the Rapid project.

In their judicial review application, they are seeking a declaration that the acquisition procedure is defective, and infringe the Land Acquisition Act regarding rights to obtain property.

They want to declare the order of requisition as null and void.

It had been reported that the construction of the RM60 billion Petronas plant hit a snag as its launch had been revised to 2018 from 2016, after the state government incur problems in relocating villages and graves from the 2,000 hectare site, five times the size of New York's Central Park.