HC Deb 28 May 1861 vol 163 cc186-7
COLONEL GILPIN

said, he rose to ask the Secretary of State for India, Whether the Civil Servants who have covenanted with the East India Company under penalty to serve them in India, the Company having on their part entered into a contract that they should succeed to appointments usually filled by covenanted servants, will lose their title to those advantages in any plan for throwing open the Civil Service? Also, whether those officers who have purchased Commissions in the Company's service under the sanction and authority of the Government, will be permitted, in their turn, to sell the Commissions that they have purchased, under similar authority, after the amalgamation of the two services?

SIR CHARLES WOOD

said, that of course to whatever extent any uncovenanted servant might be placed in a position hitherto exclusively reserved to the covenanted service he would be deprived of the advantage of that exclusive right; and he (Sir Charles Wood) proposed to introduce a Bill upon the subject. With regard to the second question of the hon. and gallant Member, he had to observe that it was not quite correct to say that any Indian officer purchased his Commission, or that there could be a case in which he was entitled to sell his Commission. The matter to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman referred was no doubt the fact that Indian Officers after serving a definite time were entitled to a certain amount of pay or pension, and that, by an arrangement made with the junior Officers of their corps or regiments, a bonus was given to them by those officers as an inducement to them to retire. That arrangement was known to the Government, and to a certain extent might be said to be sanctioned by the Government, who had announced their intention of not exacting from an Officer so retiring a declaration that he had received no money to induce him to retire, The arrangement, however, had been declared by a Court of law to be illegal, and he could not say that permission would be given by the Government to Officers to sell their Commissions after the amalgamation of the two services.