5.---Your Petitioner has renson to believe that the representation made to the Honourable Superintendent about Petitioner's alleged implication in money-fending transactions was made in the shape of an anonymous petition, by evidently interested parties for their own aggrandisement, but your Potitioner does not mention this circumstance with a view to underestimate the dne consideration that the Honourable Superintendent may have given before accepting such a representation. Your Petitioner only begs to state the circumstance with a view to point to the jealousy subsisting in the Indian Section of the Corco against success and promotion, and your Petitioner respectfully submits that for that very reason greater opportunities of meeting the charges alleged against him was due to him. As your Petitioner was unver definitely informed of the exact nature of the charges made against him, he respectfully submits he had not had those opportunities of mecting those charges as could have thoroughly exculpated him in the eyes of his superior officer. So far as he has been made aware of such charges, your Petitioner honestly avers 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 emoluments to which be was entitled after his eighteen years' unsullied service.
6--The only definite ebarge your Petitioner has been able to ascertain was made against hún, wos to the effect that about three years ago your Petitioner lent a sum of $50 or thereabouts to one Da Rocha, who was at the tirue a Telephone Clerk in the Central Police Station of this Colony.
7-Your Petitioner respectfully begs to deny that be over lent any money to the said Rocha To the knowledge of your Petitioner, the money was leat by me Gunda Singh, an excise officer, as was stated by the said Da Rocha to the said 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 by the said Ganda Singh, probably with a view to secure testimony of the transaction. Guida Singh is well known in the colony as a money-lender he is a professional money- leuder--and ander the pretext of inquiring of your Petitioner about Da Rocha's credit whilst giving the loau, your Petitioner's presoner, it can never he gainsaid, was to his great disadvantage unfairly pressed in.
S.---Beyond that your Petitioner most respectfully pleads not guilty to the money-lending attributed to him, and that he is likewise innocent of ever having received a single cent of interest or any other commission in Cunda. Singh's transaction.
8---Your Petitioner regrets that barring an intimation of his alleged implication in some money- lending transaction, as conveyed in the Certificate embodied from the Honourable the Captain Superintendent dated the 6th December, 1890, as also to some extent conveyed through some verbal inquiry, partly made in his presence and partly in his absence, as to the transaction alleged to have taken place with Du Roche some three years ago, your Petitioner cannot but with due deferencc submit that he has been kept ultogether in the dark as to the culpability of his conduct, and that he has not been given any fair opportunities of meeting any definite charges. As to the particular transaction attributed to have been effected with the sail Da Rocha, your Petitioner camot but lay stress on the significant fact that when questioned by the Honourable Captain Superintendent in Petitioner's presence as to his having recoived any money from your Petitioner, Da Rocha subverted his story altogether and told a vadically different story from that which he fold under that officer's previous inquiry in Petitioner's absence, and as the Captain Superintendent was not slow on that occasion to tax him severely for thus acting, this fact could well be corroborated by him, and 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's story in dealing with the conduct of a Police Officer who had been assiduously and honestly serving in the Force for no less a duration of years than eighteen years, and during which period not only that he served in a very unique manier, without even so much as a mouth's abscuce on leuva, but also esen without so much as a single black mark against his conduct in the official record, much so that the Captain Superintendent has himself done your Petitioner justice to certify ou the 6th of December, 1896, after the order of dismissal, that Petitiouce was for four years ander way personal command, during the last two of which he filled the post of ladian Sorgent-Major. He perlarned his Polier duties to my entire satisfaction and bore a very good character.”
St
10. Your Petitioner cannot but apprehend that, projudged and prejudicod as the matter with De Rocha has been from the outset, under the prejudice created by the anonymous representation referred to in paragraph 4 as received by the Captain Superintendent, it has been further prejudiced by certain cases that have cropped up recently against some men of his nationality about aouey-advancos; but your Petitioner muffinchingly believes that his conduct in the matter of the alleged transaction with Da Rocha will bear thorough investigation, and that he also confidently believes that he will come out of that inquiry withons the slightest tar or tarnish on his character, and he will thereby he saved from the ignominy attaching to a dismissal.
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17.-- Your Petitioner, therefore, carnestly petitioned and prayed His Excelleng the Governor, first on the 11th day of March, 1807, as per Petition herewith attached, marked I, and secondly on the 24th day of April, 1897, os por Petition herewith attached, marked II, thur, taking all the circumstances equally narrated in those Petitions as in this, His Excellency would be gracionsly ploused not to condemn a servant of the Crown in the position of your Petitioner unbeard, and that His Excellency would be pleased to appoint an independent Commission of Inquiry to formally investigate the conduct of the Petitioner in the transaction attributed to him with Da Rocha, inasuauch as an informal inquiry conducted by the Captain Superintendent had not been sufficient enough for cliciting the facts of the case from De Rocha, and that the safe-guards instrumental in guarding against deliberate prevarication had been altogether wanting in such inquiry.
12. Your Petitioner unfeignedly regrets that boyond the informal procedure of inquiry adopted by the Captain Superintendent, not only was Petitioner never definitely informed of the exact nature of the charges, but that he was also deprived of the opportunities of substantiating his plea of not guilty by being not provided with a copy of the different statements of Da Rocha, as also those of Ganda Singh, as taken down by the Captain Superintendent,
13- Your Petitioner further unfeignedly regrets and respectfully submits, that the exceptional severity with which he has been condemned and dealt with almost unheard, and the extent of the ponishmacut inflicted on him by dismissal and the entire extinction of his pension due after eighteen years' services, have not been fully appreciated by His Excellency the Governor.
Your Petitioner, therefore, vontures to approach you with a respectful prayer that you may be pleased to review the considerations urged with all due deference by your Petitioner, and graciously to grant that redress and that justice to him which the merits of his case, in conjunction with the consideration of his long and faithful service of eighteen years, entitle him to as a servant of the Crown.
15. -Your Petitioner begs to append to this a Petition, marked III, presented to His Excellency the Governor on his behalf by several fadian Merchants and Traders of this Colony, as that Petition bears ample testimony of the general character of the Petitioner, as also advances considerations having weighty bearings on the subject matter of this Petition.
16. And Your Petitioner will ever pray, &c., &c.
Hougkong,
1807.
222
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