14
-
Your Petitioner believes that he was dismissed by the Honourable Captain Superintendent under u representation geceived by him that your Petitioner was implicated in some money-leading transactions, and that being implicated in such transactions was and is against the Regulations of the said Police Force. The following are empies of certain documents signed by the said Honourable Saperintendent and given to your Petitioner shortly after his dismissal.
Hovekose, 6th December, 1896.
Urren Sival served for 18 years in the Hongkong folice, and 4 years under my personal command, during the last two of which he filled the post of Indian Sergeant-Major.
He performed his Police duties to my cutire satisfaction, and home a very good character.
Unfortunately it was found that he had been implicated in some money-lealing transactions, which is against the regulations of the Force, and he was on that account dismissed.
F. H. MAY, C.SP.
12.--Your Petitioner, therefore, humbly prays and entreats that having regard to the altogether non-incriminating chameter of the circunstances of the alleged money trutsaction, and also taking into favourable consideration his length of service in the said Police Force, uninterrupted as it hits been by even so much as a month's absence on leave, his uniform good conduct, and his steady promotion from the date of his joining the said Police Force till he became a Sergent-Major as aforesaid, your Excelleney rany be pleased to reconsider the order of dismissal passed against him, and that your Excellency may be gracinusly ploused to reiustato him in his position of the Sergeant-Major of the said Police Force, acquired as it was by an assiduity extending over an unparalleled period of eighteen years, to which your Petitioner ventures to say hardly any member in the Police Force can now lay claim,
13. Your Petitioner also pays and entreats that in the alternative of the non-reversal and mitigation of dismissal your Excellency may be graciously pleased to grant to your Petitioner a full pension in respect of his services in the said Palice Force, and that your Excellency may be pleased to take such other steps as to your Excellency may seem fit.
14.--And your Petitioner will ever prag, &c.
Dated this twolfth day of March, 1897.
UTTER SINGH,
Larn Indias Sergeant-MAJOR
HONGKONG POLICE Foncu,
POLICE DEPARTMENT,
VICTORIA, HONGKONG, 31st December, 1896.
Certifion that Ex-Sergeant-Major Urren Sivon joined the Police Force on the 10th December, 1878, and was disraissed on the 3rd December, 1896.
5.--Your Petitioner has reason to believe that the représentation rande to the Honourable Superintendent about Petitioner's alleged implication in leading transactions was made in the shape of an anonymous petition, by evidently interested parties for their own aggrandiserent, but your Petitioner does not mention this circumstance with a view to under- estimate the due consideration that the Honourable Superintendent must have given before accepting such a representation. Your Petitionenly begs to state the circumstance with a view to point to the jealousy subsisting in the Indian section of the Foreo against success and promotion, and your Petitioner respectfully submits that for that very reason greater opportunities of meeting the charges alleged against hho was due to him. As your Petitioner was never definitely informed of the exact nature of the charges wande against him, be respectfully submits he had not had those opportunities of moeting those charges as conté have thoroughly exculpated him in the eyes of his superior officer. So far as he has been made aware of such charges, your Petitiouer honestly avere that no such offence has been proved to have been committed by him as should have led to the summary dismissal of your Petitioner, and to the entire extinction of the rewards and solumments to which he was entitled after his eighteen years' unsullied service.
6--The only defuite charge your Petitioner has been able to ascertain was made against hint, was to the effect thas about three years ago your Petitioner lent a sum of $50 or thereabouts to one De Rocha, who was at the time a Telephone Clerk in the Central Police Station of this Colony.
7.Your Petitioner respectfally begs to deny that he ever leat any mouey to the said Da Rocha. To the knowledge of your Petitioner, the money was leat by one Gunda Singh, an excise officer, as was stated by the said Da Rocha to the salt Captain Superintendent, and as could be proved by your Petitioner. Your Petitioner cannot deny that the transaction took place in his presence, but the presence was, your Petitioner verily now believes, inveigled in by the sain Gunda Singh probably with a view to secure testimony of the transaction. Guoda Singh is well known in the colony as a aoney-lender-he is a professional money-lender--and under the pretext of inquiring of your Petitioner about Da Rocha's credit whilst giving the loan. your Petitioner's presence, it can never be gainaid, was to his great disadvantage unfurly pressed ju.
S.-Your Petitioner unfeignedly regrets that he unwillingly lent himself to the methods of Cunda Singh for securing his presence, and that he was so far made a dupe for the purposes of Gunda Singh, bat beyond that your Petitioner respectfully pleads not guilty to the money-lending attributed to him, and that he is likewise innocent of over having received a single ceur of interest or any other commission in Gonda Singh's trussetion.
9-And pleading so, your Petitioner submits that he has not been guilty of any breach attributed to bin of any of the Rules and Regulations for the general government and discipline of the Police Force, nor does his action as truthfully set forth above couie, as your Petitioner has been advised, within the terms of any of the crdinances subelsting in force at the tin said transnetion was, as attributed, effected by him.
?
10. Your Petitioner has not the least desire to shield his action, so for as it has gone, under any legal technicalities of any of the ordinances that may have a bearing on his prosent unfortunate position; he has neither the knowledge or the means; but above all he has not the desire to controvert the orders of his superior officer by any such means and
ethods.
11.--Your Petitioner only subunits that the punishment that has been meted out to him under a misapprehension of the nature of Petitioner's alleged implication in the transaction is out of all proportion, even so assuraing for the moment that he was guilty to the full extent of the breach of discipline attributed to him. Your Petitioner has a large family out here from India to support, he has likewise to support his aged thaher, and a large circle of other dependents in India, and though your Petitioner is fully aware that such considerations can hardly be taken into account for a recision of the order of his disnússal by the Captain Superintendent of Police, your Petitioner cannot but respectfully submit that the severity of the punistument in his case is thereby intensified heyoud all contemplated weasure.
To
H
EXCELLENON
Šie WILLIAM ROBINSON, KCMG.,
GOVERNON AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE COLOSY OF HONGKONG AND US
DEPENDENCIES AND VICE-ADMIRALS OF THE SAME,
THE NUMELE TETITION OF UTTER SINGH. OF No. 12, HOLLYWOOD ROAD, VICTORIA, HONGKONG, LATE SERGEANT-MAJOR IN THE POLICE FORCH
MOST RESPECTFULLY SHEWESH :——
1. Your Petitioner, late Indian Sergeant-Major of the Hougkong Pollos Force, respectfully submitted to your Excellency, on the 11th day of March last, a Petition referring to the matter of his dismissal from the Police Force, after eighteen years of hard, faithful and lowest service, and paying for a reconsideration, on the grounds urged therein, of the order of diseiseni passed against him, as also supplicating in the alternative of the non-reversal or unitigation of diemissal to take the lengthy period of his services into favourable consideration, and to get him the pension he is entitled tu in repoct of them.
Your Petitioner deeply regrets to learn from C.5.0. No, 489, addressed to him by the Honourable the Colonial Secretary, that your Excellency is unahie to undify your previous decision in the veze or to grant your Petitioner any pension or gratarity.
8-Your Petitioner farther regrets that he has not been vouchsafed any information as to the grounds on whion his just and respectful prayer has been denied, and, barsing an intimation of hús alleged implication in some money- leading transactions, as conveyed in the Certificate embodied in the Petition from the Honourable the Captain Superintendent dated the 6th December, 1896, and as also to some exteul conveyerl through some verbal inquiry, partly matte in his presence and paely in his absence, as to a transaction alleged to have taken pluon with one Da Rocha some three yene ago, your Petitioner cannot but with due deference submit that he has been kept altogether in the dark as to the culpability of his conduet, and that he has not been given any fiúr opportunities of meeting any doñuite charges. As to the particular trans- netion attributed to huro hon effected with Da Rocha, your Petitioner has to place before your Excellency, over and above the details given in the first Petition, the fact of Da Rocha subverting his story when questioned by the Honourable Captain Superintendent in the Petitioner's presence, and as the Captain Superintendent was not slow on that long tax bi severely for telling a different and a radically different story under that officer's previons inquiry in Petitioner's absence, and as this fict could well be corroborated by him, the question arises as to how far any reliance can be placed on, and as to what credence can be attached to, one or another version of Da Rocha in dealing with the conduct of a Police Officer who had been assiduously and funestly serving in the Force for ao less a duration of years than eighteen years, and during which long period not only that he served in a waique manner, without even so much as a month's absence on leave. but also even without so much as a single black mark against his conduct in the official record.
4. Your Petitioner submits, that it for nothing else at least for the latter traits in his curco, he is entitled to a treatment different from that which has been inflicted on him. He would not recapitulvre here all the points that have been urged by him in his first Petition, but he would only repeat here bis plea of not guilty with reference to the alleged transaction with Da Rocha, and this pleu your Petitioner is in a position to substantinte, if a copy of Da Rocha's dißerent state- ments, as also a copy of Gunda Singh's statement as taken down by the Captain Superintendent, wern supplied to him.
298