Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap has opened up about the sexual harassment allegation against his Phantom Films partner Vikas Bahl, claiming he was 'ill-advised' in the matter by his lawyers.

In a recent article on Huffpost, a former woman employee of the now dissolved production banner spoke out against Bahl about the alleged incident in May 2015.

According to the report, the woman said she had reached out to Kashyap and given him details of her experience, but no action was taken. Bahl, she said, continued to harass her until she quit the company.

In a two-page statement on Twitter, Kashyap said his legal aides told him that there was nothing he could do to fire Bahl from Phantom Films, which they set up seven years ago.

'While at Phantom, I did everything I could, within what I was told by my partner and his lawyers. For legal and financial decisions, I was fully dependent on my partner and his team. They took care of those things so I could focus on what I did better, creatives. His word and his team's word on any matter used to be the final word for us,' he said in the statement.

'According to legal advice provided to me then, I was told that we had very limited options. Now in hindsight and after taking stock of things myself, I can quite see how I was ill-advised,' he added.

Kashyap said that given limited options, the company decided to a 'strong moral stand' that included barring Bahl from the office premises and taking away his signing authority.

The filmmaker also said that he 'named and shamed' Bahl in private 'amongst whoever asked about it'.

He claimed that nothing about the allegations against Bahl was 'under wraps'.

'The victim had complete trust in me individually. However, since she knew I depended on others to handle legalities (and perhaps was more perceptive than me in seeing how I was being poorly advised), maybe she found it difficult to trust that I would be able to (or allowed to) see the plan through of stripping Vikas of his power within the company,” Kashyap wrote.

'This could perhaps also be why she eventually backed out of signing the document that was being put in place, capturing the terms of how this would be dealt with,' the director-producer added.

Kashyap also said that the lawyers told him that Bahl's removal from the company was hindered by two things -- his status as 'an equal promoter/director who actually ran the company' and that there was no clause in their contract to fire him 'on the grounds of misconduct'.

He claimed that the story got out only after he corroborated it with the journalist. He also said that he was the anonymous source who leaked out the story to the press last year.

'Why did I take time to corroborate the story? Because I took time trusting the journalist. I placed my trust in him only when the victim told me that I could. Corroborating the story is also taking a stand,” Kashyap tried to explain.

He said that for a long time the victim did not tell him about the incident because 'she saw me dealing with depression'.

'She put herself through personal hell to protect me and I could not because I was unfortunately ill-advised that there is little I could do. That being said, I fully understand that it is no excuse whatsoever and all of my actions above I'd hope are demonstrative of every intention on my part to set this right,” the statement from Kashyap said.

The filmmaker said there are not many provisions to deal with sexual harassment but 'this industry is extremely ill-equipped to handle matters such as sexual harassment, copyright, censorship and all the things we put ourselves in dock with. A large part of the reason for this is that there is clearly lack of correct advice and awareness of legal remedies.'

He apologised to the victim and said he will ensure that such incidents would not happen again on his work premises.

Bahl, Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane and Madhu Mantena, the four partners of Phantom Films, on Saturday announced that they had decided to dissolve their banner, without citing the reason for the decision.

Motwane, another partner of Bahl and Kashyap in Phantom Films, on Sunday broke his silence on Bahl.

In a statement on Twitter, Motwane, who formed the company along with Kashyap, Bahl and Madhu Mantena, apologised for the incident and said he will ensure a safer working environment on the sets of his films.

'I'm truly sorry about what happened to the girl. Vikas Bahl is a sexual offender. He's preyed on a young woman, abused her trust, ruined her life. The scars are going to stay and that just isn't right. The only thing I can offer now is an apology. And the only thing I can say is that this will never happen again on my watch,' he wrote in the statement.

Motwane, whose films Lootera, Trapped and Bhavesh Joshi have all been made under the Phantom banner, said he was unaware about the incident until March 2017. 'I didn't hear about the incident between Vikas and the girl when it happened in 2015. The the first time I heard of it was in March 2017, when Anurag called me and told me about it.'

He said that 'Madhu (Mantena), me and Anurag sat with the girl and she told us the whole story, in the same detail as in the article. It was hard to hear and it horrified us,' he said.

Motwane's statement comes after Kashyap said his legal aides told him that there was nothing he could do to fire Bahl from Phantom Films.

Motwane said the company ensured that Bahl does not produce or direct a film while they contemplated a strict action against him.

'We immediately began to take action. We offered suspending Vikas from the company for a long period of time, not letting him produce or direct, taking away his signatory rights as well as sending him in rehabilitation. She agreed. So did Vikas, who had to no memory of the incident. We also worked towards formalising this and even taking steps towards documenting these terms,' he said.

Motwane said the victim refrained from going public about the incident and Kashyap and Shubhra Shetty tried to convince her to change her mind.

'Of all the various remedies offered then to the girl and us, which included suspending him from the office, stripping him of any signing authority and not allowing him to produce films - we did all of it,' Motwane said.

The filmmaker also defended his silence over the incident and said he did so to protect the identity of the woman.

'For those of you accusing me of being complicit, creating a boys (sic) club, and protecting Vikas --- I was silent in the press because I felt I was trying to make things right in a manner that, at all times, sought to protect the identity of the girl in question, without assigning any doubt whatsoever to her version of what had transpired, and most importantly, on terms that she wanted and expressly agreed to then,' Motwane wrote.