Entering a plea of not guilty to all charges a young Indian clerk, Assudumal Amernani, appeared before Mr. I. T. Morris, Acting Registrar in HM. Police Court yesterday morning to answer his employers allegations that he had embezzled various sums of money belonging io the firm, including one mount of Y.5,000.
The charges against Amernani were brought.
by Mr. Kishinchand Ratanmal Malkani, who is in charge of the Shanghai office at 106 Peking Road oft- Messrs. Utoomel & Assudamal Ca. of Hongkong. On the first count de-tendant was -alleged io have embezzled the sum of $8040 on February 24, this amount, it was stated, having been paid to him by Messrs. Burkill & Sons on behalf of his firm. "On January 28 he was alleged to have embezzled a further sum of this money having been a received from various debtors, and on divers dates between August 15, 1938 and March 16, 1939 he was, stated to have embezzled a sum of! ¥.5,000 which, it was alleged, he had received from certain debtors andi exchange dealers.
Questioned by Mr. K. E. Newmani for the prosecution, Mr. P. Vaswani, manager ofthe frm in Hongkong, stated that defendant was sent from Hongkong to Shanghai about August 15 of last year. His salary was 80 rupees a month plus board and lodge ing and he was the only Indian employee of the firm in Shanghai, being in sole charge of the office.
"Stolen from Drawer"
Defendant, he stated, had. an office. at 89 Foochow Road and was single when he came out, although he had [since got married. As a result of receiving a report from Mr. Malkani, who had been sent from the Japan pace to Shanghai, witness came from Hongkong, arriving on March 12. He examined the books and found a lot of irregularities.
From January 1 to March 22 defendant, witness went on, only drew 340 in cash according to the accounts and, after dismissing him on March 15, witness spoke to him about a rent rebate from Messrs, Burkill & Sons.
After being questioned defendant then produced the money from his pocket and handed it to witness, On another occasion witness inspected the cash book which showed that the closing cash on January 27 was $627.99, a balance being brought forward on January 28 of $627.99 which showed a difference of $6.80 from what the figures should have been, In the book, he added, it appeared as if defendant had first written $634.79 and had then altered it to $627.99.
On March 14 or 15 defendant wrote a letter to the Hongkong office in which he stated that he had left Y5,000 in an open drawer in the office and that it had been stolen by the office boy. The police, defendant, had stated, had been informed, and he had offered a reward of $2,000 for the office boy's arrest.
After cross-examination by defendant the hearing was adjourned until Tuesday at 10 am.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.