Bhubaneswar, Dec. 27: A representative of the owner of a local television channel, Pravat Ranjan Mallick, who allegedly cheated a Jharkhand-based industrialist in a land deal, today refuted the allegations.

Mallick’s legal advisor Amaresh Chandra Samal today said that his client had been falsely implicated in the case.

“A civic suite in connection with the land deal is already pending in Gurgaon court. Mallick has also returned Rs 1.2 crore to Quazi Shakeel Ekta, but Ekta had suppressed these facts in the court of the chief judicial magistrate, Dhanbad. It is illegal for a court to issue an arrest warrant despite the same matter being sub-judice in another court,” said Samal.

However, both Mallick and his wife remained untraced for the second day after Jharkhand Police raided their residence in Nayapalli yesterday.

The search was conducted on the basis of an arrest warrant issued by the court of chief judicial magistrate, Dhanbad.

“We have all the documents and proof of bank transactions. We will move the upper court,” said senior manager of corporate relations of the news channel, Pratap Kumar Jena.

Sources said the Jharkhand Police returned today after they faced stiff resistance from the family members of Mallick.

Earlier, Ekta had alleged that Mallick had sold nine acres of the latter’s land to another person despite taking an advance of Rs 2.49 crore from Ekta and signing an agreement with him. A case under sections 420 (cheating), 406 (punishment for criminal breach of trust) and 120B (punishment of criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code was registered at Chirkunda police station. Later, the court of chief judicial magistrate, Dhanbad, issued an arrest warrant on October 19.