§ SIR SEYMOUR KING (Hull, Central)To ask the Under-Secretary of State for 1461 India whether the Secretary of State's attention has been directed to the Memorial addressed to him by Mr. C. W. Allan, an extra Deputy-Conservator of forests in the Burma provincial service; whether Mr. Allan, after passing through the college at Dehra Dun, joined the Indian Forest Service on 1st February, 1887, at a time when it was provided by Section 21 of the then Forest Department Code that, after five years approved service as Sub-Assistant Conservator of Forests, he would be drafted into the upper controlling staff; whether he is aware that in 1891 the Government issued a new Forest Department reorganisation scheme debarring all officers thenceforward appointed in India from promotion to the upper controlling staff, and that, having done four years of admittedly approved service, the new scheme was by ex post facto ruling applied to Mr. Allan's case; whether he is aware that recently the Secretary of State for India has sanctioned the transfer of Mr. Shrish Chandra Chakrabatti from the provincial to the Imperial engineering service on the gromid that, as he had actually entered the Sibpur Engineering College before the issue of the orders closing the Imperial service to students of Indian engineering colleges, he had an equitable right to an appointment in the Imperial service; and will he state on what ground, in an analogous case, Mr. Allan has been refused similar treatment; and whether the Government of India will be directed to remedy the grievance from which Mr. Allan is suffering.
(Answered by Mr. Buchanan.) Mr. Allan's Memorial has been received from India, and is now under the consideration of the Secretary of State in Council. The Secretary of State is not in a position at present to make a statement regarding it.