Kolkata: A Kolkata court on February 1 rejected bail prayer of Mumbai stockbroker Ketan Vinaychandra Parekh in connection with the Rs 120 crore payment crisis at Calcutta Stock Exchange in March, 2001, and remanded him to judicial custody till February 15.

Parekh was arrested on January 20 after he surrendered before the court of chief metropolitan magistrate S C Misra as per Mumbai High Court order and was in police custody since then.

Public prosecutor A K Bakshi on February 1 sought further extension of police custody to interrogate Parekh on the basis of documents that were seized by city police a few days back from the Mumbai office of the broker.

Rejecting the prayer for police custody, Misra remanded him to judicial custody with a condition that he be allowed to be interrogated in jail twice a week with the prior permission of the superintendent though police wanted him to interrogate for seven consecutive days after the seized documents arrived from Mumbai.

The judge also ordered daily medical examination of Parekh in jail and submission of report to the court twice a week.

Earlier, Parekh's counsel submitted that all the six charges - circular trading, illegal funding, illegal badla, siphoning of funds through hawala, indictment by JPC (Joint Parliamentary Committee) and having connection with a broking firm of CSE which in turn had relation with the three main defaulters during the crisis - made against his client were not within the jurisdiction of Kolkata police and he be allowed to be released on bail.

PTI