Chapter BEHAR to BENAMEE of B by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

have an Island called Anjediva [see ANCHEDIVA]…about two miles from Batcoal.”—A. Hamilton, i. 277.

BELGAUM, n.p. A town and district of the Bombay Presidency, in the S. Mahratta country. The proper name is said to be Canarese Vennugrama, ‘Bamboo-Town.’ [The name of a place of the same designation in the Vizagapatam district in Madras is said to be derived from Skt. bila-grama, ‘cave-village.’—Mad. Admin. Man. Gloss. s.v.] The name occurs in De Barros under the form “Cidade de Bilgan” (Dec. IV., liv. vii. cap 5).

BENAMEE, adj. P.—H. be-nami, anonymous’; a term specially applied to documents of transfer or other contract in which the name entered as that of one of the chief parties (e.g. of a purchaser) is not that of the person really interested. Such transactions are for various reasons very common in India, especially in Bengal, and are not by any means necessarily fradulent, though they have often been so. [“There probably is no country in the world except India, where it would be necessary to write a chapter ‘On the practice of putting property into a false name.”—(Mayne, Hindu Law, 373).] In the Indian Penal Code (Act XLV. of 1860), sections 421-423, “on fraudulent deeds and dispositions of Property,” appear to be especially directed against the dishonest use of this benamee system.

It is alleged by C. P. Brown on the authority of a statement in the Friend of India (without specific reference) that the proper term is banami, adopted from such a phrase as banami chitthi, ‘a transferable note of hand,’ such notes commencing, ‘ba-nam-i-fulana,’ ‘to the name or address of’ (Abraham Newlands). This is conceivable, and probably true, but we have not the evidence, and it is opposed to all the authorities: and in any case the present form and interpretation of the term benami has become established.

1854.—“It is very much the habit in India to make purchases in the name of others, and from whatever causes the practice may have arisen, it has existed for a series of years: and these transactions are known as ‘Benamee transactions’; they are noticed at least as early as the year 1778, in Mr. Justice Hyde’s Notes.”—Ld. Justice Knight Bruce, in Moore’s Reports of Cases on Appeal before the P. C., vol. vi. p. 72.

“The presumption of the Hindoo law, in a joint undivided family, is that the whole property of the family is joint estate…where a purchase of real estate is made by a Hindoo in the name of one of his sons, the presumption of the Hindoo law is in favour of its being a benamee purchase, and the burthen of proof lies on the party in whose name it was purchased, to prove that he was solely entitled.”—Note by the Editor of above Vol., p. 53.

1861.—“The decree Sale law is also one chief cause of that nuisance, the benamee system.…It is a peculiar contrivance for getting the benefits and credit of property, and avoiding its charges and liabilities. It consists in one man holding land, nominally for himself, but really in secret trust for another, and by ringing the changes between the two…relieving the land from being attached for any liability personal to the proprietor.”—W. Money, Java, ii. 261.

1862.—“Two ingredients are necessary to make up the offence in this section (§ 423 of Penal Code). First a fraudulent intention, and secondly a false statement as to the consideration. The mere fact that an assignment has been taken in the name of a person not really interested, will not be sufficient. Such…known in Bengal as benamee transactions…have nothing necessarily fraudulent.”—J. D. Mayne’s Comm. on the Penal Code, Madras 1862, p. 257.