The Calcutta high court on Monday admitted a writ petition filed by stock broker Ketan Parekh seeking the quashing of investigations initiated by the Kolkata police against him for his alleged link with multi-crore share scam at the Calcutta Stock Exchange.

However, Justice M H S Ansari of the high court refused to grant any relief to Parekh concerning his appearance before the city magistrate on Tuesday. The court directed the concerned respondents to file affidavits in the case and fixed the case for hearing after a month.

Parekh was arrested by the Kolkata police in Mumbai following a first information report lodged by the CSE. He was released on bail by a Mumbai court. The bail is valid till January 7, 2003. The condition of the bail was that Parekh has to appear before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kolkata.

Mahesh Jethmalani, counsel for Parekh, also sought an order from the high court for extension of the period of the bail and that the exemption from personal appearance before the magistrate be extended.

This was strongly opposed by Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya and Nandini Mitra, counsel for the state. The high court refused to pass any order to that effect.

Pending the writ petition in the high court, Parekh was asked to move the petition at the appropriate forum.

In the writ petition, Parekh stated the FIR did not disclose cause of action against him and there was no specific allegation against him for any offence. The petition added that the investigating agency was not interested in interrogating Parekh but was seeking his detention for malafide purposes.

Parekh's petition sought order of injunction restraining respondents from taking further steps based upon investigations initiated by the detective department of Kolkata Police and stay on all proceedings.

Following the FIR, the police arrested 18 persons , including H C Biyani, Dinesh Singhania, Asoke Poddar and other stock brokers and their associates who are in judicial custody.