JAMMABUNDY - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

JAMMABUNDYAuthored

The Law Mind • 451 words

Definition

A historical Anglo-Indian legal term referring to a settlement or arrangement for the collection of land revenue, particularly a system under which the assessment of land tax was fixed or settled for a defined period. The term appears in the administrative law of British India and relates to the revenue administration systems developed under colonial governance, wherein agreements were made between the colonial revenue authorities and landholders or intermediaries concerning the amount and terms of land tax obligations.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers encountering this term will almost certainly find it only in materials relating to British colonial administration in India, particularly in revenue law contexts from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is not a term of general Anglo-American legal usage and does not appear in modern domestic law. If you encounter it in a historical source, the surrounding context of land revenue settlement is essential to interpretation — the term operates within a highly specialized administrative vocabulary that includes related concepts such as ryotwari, zamindari, and mahalwari settlement systems, each representing a distinct framework for organizing land revenue collection.

Black's Law Dictionary's treatment of this term is sparse, and researchers should not expect the entry to resolve questions about the specific obligations or rights it created in practice. Primary sources in British Indian administrative records, revenue regulations, and colonial-era legal compilations will be necessary for substantive research. The Regulations of the various Presidencies (Bengal, Madras, Bombay) and the records of the East India Company are the appropriate archival starting points.

The term is unlikely to appear in American legal sources at all, and its appearance in any non-colonial-context document would be exceptional and warrant scrutiny.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's Law Dictionary includes the term but provides only minimal definitional content, situating it within the Anglo-Indian revenue administration context without elaborating on its operative legal significance. The entry reflects the broader pattern in historical legal dictionaries of cataloguing colonial administrative terminology without deep engagement with the underlying legal structures that gave such terms their practical meaning.

Historical sources beyond Black's are largely silent on this term in any analytical sense. Its primary life is in administrative and revenue documents rather than in case law or treatise literature, which explains the thin lexicographic record. Researchers should treat dictionary entries for terms of this type as pointers rather than authorities.

Jurisdictional Note

This term is specific to the legal and administrative history of British India. It has no recognized meaning or application in any modern jurisdiction and should be treated as a historical term of art requiring context-specific interpretation.

JAMMABUNDYmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

J. The initial letter of the words "judge" and "justice," for which it frequently stands as an abbreviation. Thus, "J. A.," judge advocate; “J. J.,” junior judge; “L. J.," law judge; "P. J.," president judge; "F. J.," first judge; "A. J.," associate judge; "C. J.," chief justice or judge; "J. P.," justice of the peace; "JJ.," judges or justices; "J. C. P.," justice of the common pleas; "J. K. B.," justice of the king's bench; “J. Q. B.,” justice of the queen's bench; “J. U. B.,” justice of the upper bench. This letter is sometimes used for “I," as the initial letter of "Institutiones," in references to the Institutes of Justinian.