§ LORD STANLEY OF ALDEBLEY,in presenting a Petition from Sarvepalli Chenchu Ramiah, late sub-magistrate Madras Presidency, and to ask, Whether the India Office has made any inquiry into the matters set forth in his Petition to the Secretary of State for India of the 17th of February, 1882? said, that the Petitioner alleged that he had been accused of bribery, but that the charges had not been proved by any evidence. That statement must be true, since otherwise it would have been the duty of the Government to have dismissed him from the service. The Government, however, thought he was not fit for magisterial duties, and directed that he should be appointed to another post. Mr. Hardinge, the acting collector of Nellore, then reduced him to a temporary post of 35 rupees—though there were several posts at 70 rupees in the Hazur establishment—by which he would lose his pension after serving 15 years. The 1907 Madras Government asked the collector of Nellore in August, 1881, why the Petitioner had been thus treated. After a delay of three months, Mr. Grose, the collector, invented, according to the Petitioner, a new charge of insubordination and of being absent without leave. This, the Petitioner represented, was false, and proved to be so by The Nellore District Gazette of August 7th, 1880, which published the sick leave granted by the collector, Mr. Grose, himself to the Petitioner. Reference to that Gazette ought to be enough to show whether the allegation of the Petitioner in this respect was true or not. If true, it would show that he had been unjustly treated by the collector, and that the Madras Government trusted to him too much, and left too much in the hands of that subordinate official. He would conclude by asking whether the India Office had taken any notice of the Petition to the Secretary of State of February 17th of this year, and made any inquiry? If the India Office were to treat as waste paper all the Petitions made to it that were not transmitted by the Government complained of, there would be no check upon the conduct of the subordinate officials, whose acts were nearly always supported by their superiors.
VISCOUNT ENFIELDNothing is known of a Petition of the date of February 17, 1882. But a Petition dated May 5, 1882, was sent by this person from India direct to the Secretary of State, instead of being transmitted through the Government of Madras as required by the rules as to such memorials. It was therefore sent back on the 9th of June by post to the Government of Madras for return to the Petitioner, and the India Office has made no inquiries into the matters set forth in the Petition.
§ Petition ordered to lie upon the Table.