The Calcutta High Court on Friday stayed the proceedings in a first information report lodged against Officer on Special Duty to the Governor of West Bengal Sandeep Singh for allegedly stopping a woman from filing a police complaint of sexual harassment against Governor CV Ananda Bose, reported Bar and Bench.

The complainant, a 29-year-old contractual employee at Kolkata’s Raj Bhavan, had accused Bose of inappropriately touching her on April 24 and on May 2. She wrote a complaint letter to Raj Bhavan’s officer in charge on the day of the second incident.

The single-judge bench of Justice Amrita Sinha observed that Singh had already been granted bail in the case, registered against him by the Kolkata Police, and that the investigation against him was in its preliminary stages.

Sinha noted that Singh, along with other staff members, had allegedly locked the woman in a room on the West Bengal Raj Bhavan premises in Kolkata. According to the woman’s complaint, they allegedly threatened her against sharing details of the alleged sexual harassment with any authority or lodging a complaint against the governor.

“Whether the ingredients disclosed in the complaint can be treated as wrongful restraint will be decided,” Sinha said in the Friday order. “At this stage, it does not appear that the probe will suffer in any manner if the same is temporarily stayed till June 17.”

In his petition, Singh contended that the complaint against him was lodged by the woman on May 7 as an “afterthought”, since the alleged incident of wrongful restraint took place on May 2. He claimed her initial complaint on May 2 did not name him.

Singh had sought to quash the first information report against him registered by the Kolkata Police, arguing that the allegation of wrongful restraint had become “improbable” as the complainant claimed to have somehow managed to leave the room in which she had been allegedly confined.

Advocate General Kishore Datta opposed staying the investigation against Singh, arguing that the improbability of the allegations could be decided at a later, appropriate stage.