1870 2. District Officers will submit to the Commissioner, not later REV. CIR. than the 1st January in each year, budget estimates of their requirements from the Record Fund for the ensuing official year. The Commissioner will amend these estimates at his discretion, and will compile them with the addition of an estimate of the requirements of his own office into a divisional statement, which he will submit with all necessary explanations to the Board, on or before the 1st February. On receipt of these estimates, the Board will allot to each division whatever sum may be available for its use. 3. In regulating the estimates, each Commissioner must bear in mind how small a sum it is possible for the Board to place each year at his disposal. He must proceed on the assumption that, unless the paucity of demands from other divisions should enable the Board to assign to him more than a proportionate share of the whole available funds, his total allotment cannot exceed a sum which will supply him with 240 rupees for each district in his division, and 50 rupees for his own office. The items in his estimate should, therefore, be divided into two classes ; (1st) those which he considers of the greatest importance, to a total amount not exceeding that which has been above indicated; and (2nd) those to which he desires sanction in case extra funds should be available for the purpose. With so scanty a provision, however, for the wants of the whole of Lower Bengal, the Board rely on Commissioners to exclude from the first part of their budgets every item that does not appear to them to be absolutely necessary, or of very great importance, so as to leave, if possible, a surplus in their hands to meet urgent requisitions from other quarters. 4. The Board will reserve a small fund to meet unforeseen exigencies. In case any such should arise in the course of the year, Commissioners may submit supplementary indents, which will be complied with, if possible. 5. As any excess expenditure in one year must be met from the allotment of the year following, and as, on the other hand, a surplus at the end of the year lapses to Government, it is obviously important that the Board should have before them, in a complete form, the accounts of actual expenditure against the 1870 allotment of the current year, when judging of the estimates submitted for the following year. The character of the work REV. CIR. to be paid for from the Record Fund supplies a simple way of attaining this object. For the performance of that work a continuous expenditure throughout the whole year can never be indispensable. It must be, therefore, understood once for all that every District Officer is to submit with his yearly estimate a complete statement of his actual expenditure from the allotment of the year then current, and that no disbursement is, on any account, to be made after the date up to which such statement of account has been made up, without the special sanction of the Board in each instance. In connection with this rule, the attention of all officers is drawn to Circular Order No. 4 for August last. Under the provision of that order which requires the. reservation of half the salaries of temporary establishments until the termination of the periods for which they have been sanctioned, such reserved sums to be expended, in each case in which the work may not have been completed within the period specified, in the employment of other hands to finish it, it will now obviously be necessary that, in applications for sanction to the entertainment of establishments payable from the Record Fund, the periods during which it is proposed to employ such establishments should be so regulated as to leave time after the expiration of those periods for the performance under the above rule, before the date on which the accounts must be submitted, of any work left incomplete by those establishments. 6. It is hoped that Commissioners will take pains to enforce the observance of these rules. With a little care and forethought, such observance will be a matter of no difficulty, and will avoid all the irregularities and complications which have hitherto entailed so much troublesome correspondence in connection with the Record Fund. 7. For the three last lines of clause 1, Sec. VII, page 211, Board's Rules, read "The following rules are prescribed for the guidance of local officers in applying for assignments from the Record Fund." 8. After clause 1, insert paras. 2 to 5 as Rules 1A., 1B., 1C., and 1D. 1870 REV. CIR. No. 3. IN Circular Order No. 6 of May 1870, the cancellation in toto of Rule 5 B. in Chapter V, Section XVIII at page 81 of the Board's Rules, was a mistake. The rule, which is hereby revived, should be added to the aforesaid Chapter, as before, together with the following additional rules : 5B. Owing to the great importance of paying rewards promptly to informers and apprehenders of offenders against the Opium Laws, the Government have, in order to obviate the delay which must often occur in realizing fines, sanctioned the provision of a large amount in the Budget Estimates of the two Opium Agencies, from which rewards are payable. 5C. In all cases, the rewards adjudged by the Magistrate are chargeable to the Budget of the Opium Department, and should not, therefore, be included in the contingent bills of either the Revenue or Criminal Departments. 5D. Payments should be made on a special form of bill, which has been registered at the Stationery Office as No. 182 of the forms prescribed by the Accountant-General, Bengal. 5E. When the fine has been at once realized from which a reward is payable, the reward adjudged by the Magistrate may at once be paid on production of the Magistrate's order,—subject to the proviso contained in Rule 5,--and the payee's receipt should be obtained for the amount on a bill in the prescribed form. The receipted bill should be forwarded after payment to the Opium Agent of the division, by whom it will be countersigned and returned, and the bill so receipted and countersigned should be transmitted to the Accountant-General as a voucher in support of the payment. 5F. When fines, &c., are not realized at once, a bill for the amount of reward proposed to be paid, drawn up in the prescribed form, should be forwarded to the Opium Agent, with a statement of the case and an application for authority to make the payment; and on receiving it back from the Agent duly countersigned, the amount is to be disbursed, and the bill should be forwarded to the Accountant-General as a voucher duly receipted by the payee. NOVEMBER, 1870. V. H. SCHALCH, ESQ., AND A. MONEY, ESQ., C.B. No. 1. THE Government of India in the Financial Department having decided to use Adhesive Stamps only under the Court Fees' Act, District Officers are particularly requested to restrict their indents for stamps to immediate requirements, until the arrival of the new labels which have been indented for from England. No. 2. THE following is added to Rule 14 A., Section IV, Chapter VI, at page 119 of the Board's Rules: "Transfers are not to be made without definite reason in each Rule 15 is hereby cancelled, as well as Circular Order No. 1 of December 1869. In line 4, Rule 16, the words "this rule" should be replaced by the words "the provisions of Rule 14.” No. 3. THE following addition should be made to Rule 2, Section IV, page 23, Board's Rules, after the word "Estimates" in the 3rd line:-"This rule extends to all charges which require the sanc"tion of Government, but not to any which can be sanctioned "by authorities subordinate to the Government." No. 4. THE following words should be inserted in Clause 12, page 42 of the Board's Rules in the 4th line after "shall:"-" include recoveries of stamp fees in pauper suits, and shall." 1870 REV. CIR. 1870 REV. CIR. No. 5. THE following is to be substituted for Rule 12, page 34, Board's Rules: 12. On receipt from the Government Pleader of the report required by Rule 7, the Collector shall take into immediate consideration the propriety, in the case of a decree adverse to the Government, of satisfying the decree, or of preferring an appeal against it; and in the case of a decree in favor of Government, the expediency of taking out immediate execution, or of awaiting the expiry of the period allowed by law for an appeal. In all urgent cases, of either description above mentioned, the Collector may and should act at once on his own responsibility, reporting his proceedings for the confirmation of the Commissioner. Under ordinary circumstances his proper course will be to report the facts of the case for the orders of the Commissioner and the Legal Remembrancer, with his opinion in respect to the action which should be taken by Government. The present Rule 12 is to be Rule 12A., with the following alteration: For the first five lines and down to " decree" in the 6th line, substitute "When the Government Pleader shall receive from the Collector instructions to satisfy or to take out execution of a decree," The following is to be inserted as Rule 12 B., page 34, Board's Rules: Cases in which decrees have been passed in favor of Government by the Court of first instance, are not to be shown in Board's Return No. VI. B., until the period allowed by law for appeal has elapsed, or, in the case of an appeal having been preferred, until the judgment of the Appellate Court is known. But an exception to this rule must be made in those cases in which the Collector may have, under the provisions of Rule 12, taken steps to realize the amount of the decree before the lapse of the period of appeal. All such cases should appear in the return. No. 6. IN the Column for Remarks in all future Statements XXI E. |