Cuttack, Oct. 8: Orissa High Court denied temporary reprieve to Champua's Independent MLA Sanatan Mahakud in a criminal intimidation case brought against him by a woman who claimed to be his daughter-in-law.

Mahakud had approached the high court for intervention after a case was registered against him on the basis of the woman's complaint. The court has refused to interfere as the cops were still probing into the case registered at Mahila police station in Bhubaneswar.

Mahakud had moved the high court for quashing the FIR in which Kavita Mahakud had alleged that she had been subjected to mental and physical abuse as well as intimidation by the legislator and his relatives. He said the allegations were baseless and unfounded.

Based on Kavita's complaint, the Mahila police station had registered a case against Sanatan and his son-in-law Dinabandhu under sections 498 A (cruelty to a woman by husband or relatives), 341 (wrongful restraint), and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code in March.

"The single judge bench of Justice B.K. Nayak expressed disinclination to interfere in the case at this stage it is under investigation, but gave the petitioner the liberty to move the court after police filed the chargesheet," Mahakud's counsel Rajiv Kumar Mahanta said of the petition, which came up for hearing on Thursday.

Kavita had alleged that Mahakud's son Pankaj had married her in March 2014 but the legislator forced him to stay away from her. Kavita had also produced photographs of her with Pankaj to substantiate her claims.

However, both Mahakud and his son have denied those claims.

"My daughter-in-law is in my home and I don't know of any the other woman who is claiming to be my daughter-in-law. I don't know who filed the case as my daughter-in-law is in my house," the 57-year-old legislator had claimed.

Mahakud, who had earlier contested the 2009 elections on a Congress ticket, quit the party and contested the Assembly elections in 2014 as an Independent candidate.

Mahakud shot into limelight ahead of the elections after he declared assets worth Rs 69 crore in his affidavit. In July last year, the enforcement directorate conducted raids at 15 places, including his residence in Keonjhar district, in connection with an alleged mining scam.

Earlier this year, the district administration reclaimed a five-acre government plot at Uchabali mouza in Barbil tehsil that had been illegally occupied by the MLA for about two decades.