BEIJING - The long-awaited new urban land requisition regulation might be released by the end of December, or an updated draft version may be published to seek public opinion again, a legal expert close to the legislators said on Sunday.

Shen Kui, a law professor at Peking University, told China Daily that the long-delayed draft amendment to the existing Regulation on Demolishing Urban Housing is not "strangled in cradle" as many people have speculated.

But he admitted that the delay since a draft version was made public to solicit public opinion was unprecedented.