In-house inquiry gives clean chit to Bengal Guv in molestation case

Kolkata: The office of West Bengal Governor C.V. Ananda Bose on Saturday released the preliminary report of an independent in-house judicial inquiry conducted by a retired judge, which termed charges of 'sexual harassment' levelled against the Governor by a female contractual employee of the Raj Bhavan 'baseless'.

In the report filed by retired district judge D. Ramabathiran, a copy of which has been accessed by IANS, the possibility of the alleged occurrence on April 24 and May 2 at the Raj Bhavan “as stated by the complainant has been ruled out as baseless allegations".

As per the report, eight staff members of the Raj Bhavan were examined by the retired judge in the course of the probe, including the Governor’s Aide-De-Camp Major Nikhil Kumar and Manish Joshi, telephone operator Kaveri Kar, attendant Saima Begum, supervisor Munna Chowdhury, attendant Kusum Chettri, chaprasi Sant Kumar Lal, and OSD Sandeep Kumar Singh.

The report said that on May 2, the day when a police complaint was filed against the Governor by the contractual staff of the Governor's House, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Kolkata and made a night stay at the Raj Bhavan for which the members of the Special Protection Group (SPG) were already in the city.

The report raised questions about the possibility of such an event occurring on that day.

The report also mentioned that no woman staff member of the Raj Bhavan expressed any similar apprehension against the Governor during the course of the investigation.

Trashing the internal report, Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh said it is an eyewash as the Governor has given himself the clean chit by getting a probe done on his own.

He also questioned the justification of conducting the investigation by a retired district judge from a southern state.

IANS