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4.Your Petitioner believes that he was dismissed by the Honourable Captain Superintendant under a representation received by him that your Petitioner was impliented in some money-lending transactions, and that being implicated in such transactions was and i ngainst the Regulatious of the sald Police Force. The following are copies of certain documents signed by the said Honourable Superinteulent and given to your Petitioner shortly aflor his dismissal,
HONGKONG, 6th December, 1896.
UTTER SINGH Jerved for 18 years in the Hongkong Police, and 4 years under way personal command, during the last two of which he filled the post of Indian Sergeant-Major.
Ho portrived his Police duties to my entire solíathetion, and bore a very good character.
Unfortunately it was found that he had been implicated in some money-lending transactions, which is aguinst the regulations of the Force, and he was on that recount dierissed.
F. H. MAY, C.S.P.
7.
12. Your Petitioner, therefoto, bumbly prays and entreats that having regard to the altogether non-incriminating character of the circumstances of the alleged money transaction, and also taking into favourable consideration his length of service in the said Police Force, uninterrupted as it has been by even so much as a month's absence ou leave, his uniform good conduct, and his steady promotion from the date of his joining the said Police Fores till he became a Sargeant-Major as aforesaid, your Excellency may be pleased to reconsider the order of dismissal passed againat bim, aud that your Excellency may be graciously pleased to reinstate him in his position of the Sergeant-Major of the said Police Force, anquired as it was by an assiduity extending over an unparalleled period of eighteen years, to which your Petitioner ventares to say hardly any member in the Police Force can now by claim.
13.--Your Petitioner also prays and entreata that in the alternative of the non-reversal and witigation of dismissal your Excellency may be graciously pleased to grant to your Petitioner a full pension in respect of his services in the said. Police Force, and that your Excellency may be pleased to take such other steps as to your Excellency may seem fit.
14And your Petitioner will over pray, &c.
Dated this twelfth day of March, 1897.
UTTER SINGIT,
LATE INDIAN SERGEANT-MAJOR
HONGKONG POLICE FORCR.
POLICE DEPARTMENT,
VICTORIA, HONGKONO, 31st December, 1806.
Certified that Es-Sergeant-Major UTTER SINGH joined the Police Force on the 10th December, 1878, and was dismissed on the 3rd December, 1896.
5.-Your Petitioner bas reason to believe that the representation made to the Honourable Superintendent about Petitioner's alleged implication in lending transtetions was made in the shape of an anonymous petition, by evidently interested parties for their own aggraudisement, but your Petitioner does not mention this circumstance with a view to under- estimate the duc consideration that the Honourable Superintendent must have given before accepting such a representation. Your Petitioner only bege to state the circumstance with a view to point to the jealousy subsisting is the Indian section of the Force 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 Petitiouer was never definitely informed of the exact nature of the charges made against kim, be respectfully subroíts be had not had those opportunities of meeting 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 curamitted by him as should have led to the summary dismissal of your Petitioner, and to the entire extinction of the rewards and emolumenta to which he was entitled after his eighteen years' unsullied service.
6. The only definite charge your Petitioner has been able to ascertain was made against hinų, was 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 time a Telephone Clerk in the Central Police Station of this Colony.
7.--Your Petitioner respectfully begs to deny that he ever let any money to the said Da Rocha. To tho knowledge of your Petitioner, the money was lent by one 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 in by the said Gunda Singh probably with a view to secure testimony of the transaction. Gunda Singh is well known in the colony as a rooney-loader--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 gainsaid, was to his great disadvantage unfairly pressed in.
B.--Your Petitioner unfeignedly regrets that be unwillingly lent himself to the methods of Gunda Singh for securing his presence, and that he was an fhr made a dupe for the purposes of Gunda Singh, but beyond that your Petitioner 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 Gunda Singh's transetion.
9.--And pleading so, your Petitioner submits that he has not been guilty of any breach attributed to him 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 come, as your Petitioner has been advised, within the terms of any of the ordinances subsisting in force at the time the said tra.action was, as attributed, effected by him.
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10.-Your Petitionesus not the least desire to shield his action, so far as it has gone, under any legal technicalities of any of the ordinances that may have u bearing on his present unfortunate position; he has either the knowledge vor the means; but above all be has not the desire to controvert the orders of his superior officer by any such means and methode.
11.-Your Petitioner only submits that the punishment that has been instead out to him under a misapprehension of the untare of F'etitionor's alleged implication in the transaction is out of all proportion, even so assuming 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 father, and a large circle of other dependents in India, and thongli your Petitioner is fully aware that such considerations can hardly be taken into account for a ronision of the order of him dismissal by the Captain Superintendent of Police, your Petitioner cannot but respectfully submit that the severity of the pouishment in his ease is thereby intensified beyond all contemplated measure.
To
HIS EXCELLENCY
SIR WILLIAM ROBINSON, K.C.M.G.,
GOVERNOR AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE COLONY OF HONGKONG AND ITS
DEPENDENCIES AND VICE-ADMIRALS OF THE SAME,
THE HUMBLE PETITION OF UTTER SINGH, OF No. 12, HOLLYWOOD ROAD, VICTORIA, UONGKONG, LATE SERGEANT-MAJOR IN THE POLICE FORCE,
MONT RESPECTFULLY SAKWBEN ;-
1.- Your Petitioner, late Indian Sergeant-Major of the Hongkong Police 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 honest service, and praying for a reconsideration, on the grounds urged therein, of the order of dismissal passed against him, as also supplicating in the alternative of the non-reversal or mitigation of dismissal to take the lengthy period of his services into favourable consideration, and to graut him the pension he is entitled to in repest of them.
2--Your Petitioner deeply regrets to learn from C.S.O. No. 489, addressed to him by the Honourable the Colonial Secretary, that your Excellency is unable to modify your previous decision in the case or to grant your Petitioner any pension or gratuity.
3.--Your Petitioner further regrete that he has not been vouchsafed any infomation as to the grounds on which his just and respectful prayer has been deufed, and, barring an intimation of his alleged implication in some inney- landing transactions, a conveyed in the Certificate erabodied in the Petition from the Honourable the Captain Superintendent dated the 6th December, 1896, and as also to some extent conveyed through some verbal inquiry, partly made in his presence and partly in his absence, as to a transaction alleged to have taken place with one Da Boha some three years ago, your Petitioner cannot but with due deference submit that he has been kept altogether in the dark as to the culpability of his conduct, and that he has not been given any fair opportunities of mosting any definite charges. As to the particular trau action attributed to have been 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 question by the Honourable Captain Superintendent in the Petitioner's presence, and as the Captain Superintendent was not sle, on that occasion to tax him sverely for telling a different and a radioally different story muder that oflicer's previous inquiry in F'ctitioner's ahernce, and ae the fact could well be corroborated by him, the question arises as to how fur any reliance can be placed on, and as to what ere-lence can be attached to, one or another version of Da Rocha in dealing with the erpduet of a Police Officer who had been naiduously and honestly serving in the Force for no less a duration of years than eighteen years, and during which long period not only that he served in a unique 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 if for nothing else at least for the latter traits in his career, he is entitled to a trentment different from that which has been inflicted on him. He would not recapitulate here all the points that have been urged by him in his first Petition, but he would only repeat hero his plea of not guilty with reference to the alleged transaction with Da Rocha, and this plen your Petitioner is in a position to substantiate, if a copy of Da Rocha's different state- ments, as also a copy of Gunda Singh's statement as taken down by the Captain Superintendent, were supplied to him.
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