ABSTRACT
The British authorities in Assam had to go through long and weary process in order to find solutions to the problems that confronted them in the administration of justice. In the administration of civil justice the British initially preserved the traditional form, ‘well suited to the peculiar conditions of its society and people’. The changes in the system of revenue administration brought about corresponding changes in the administration of civil justice. The British government created a new land system based on private property and introduced money economy. The administration of civil justice was almost entirely in the hands of the panchayats or native courts composed of the local gentry. In the administration of criminal justice, the rules prevalent in Assam were quite close to the Bengal Regulations. David Scott’s policy of employing natives in the administration of justice, however sound in theory, proved disastrous in practice.
