A district court rejected on Friday a plea to halt Shikoku Electric Power Co.'s plan to restart a reactor at the Ikata nuclear power plant in western Japan.

The decision by the Oita District Court was in line with a high court ruling Tuesday, which accepted an appeal by the power company and gave the green light for the restart of the No. 3 unit at the plant in Ehime Prefecture.

It was an about-face from a provisional injunction issued in December by a separate judge from the Hiroshima High Court that required the utility to suspend the reactor until the end of September.

The temporary suspension order drew attention as it was the first case in which a Japanese high court banned operations at a nuclear plant since the 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi complex.

Shikoku Electric is planning to restart the No. 3 reactor on Oct. 27.

The focal point of whether to restart the reactor, which has been idle for maintenance since last October, was the power plant's resistance to volcanic eruptions.

In handing down the ruling at the district court on Friday, Presiding Judge Shigenori Sato said, "It cannot be said that a catastrophic eruption of Mt. Aso while the reactor is in operation is imminent."

A group of citizens in Oita Prefecture had also sought a provisional injunction, arguing that the power company underestimates the risk of pyroclastic flows reaching the plant if a big eruption occurs at the caldera of Mt. Aso, which is about 130 kilometers away.

(Protesters in front of Oita District Court after handing down the ruling)

The prefecture, located around 50 km from the town of Ikata is on the opposite shore of the Ikata plant.

Shikoku Electric has claimed there is a "low possibility" of the volcano experiencing a large-scale eruption while the reactor is in operation.

The company has already decided to decommission aging Nos. 1 and 2 reactors.

The ruling by the Hiroshima High Court said that worries over a volcanic eruption damaging the plant are "groundless."

Similar legal procedures to seek suspension of the No. 3 reactor have been taken at other courts in neighboring Kagawa and Yamaguchi prefectures.

The Iwakuni branch of the Yamaguchi District Court is scheduled to hand down a decision by the end of next March.