Definition of "punchayet" []

• In the village communities of Hindustan, a committee of five men sitting as a jury to try offenses against caste, etc., or as an administrative council or the like. (noun)

The Century Dictionary (Public Domain)

• "The punchayet have bigger challenges to sponsor fertility programme and increases subsidies as families grow, for the community faces its own survival battle."
• "The punchayet says the aviary idea does not sound viable, but insists it has little money to support it, given its obligations to subsidize Mumbai's Parsis from cradle to grave."
• "That made the Three very angry (with the world so new-and-all), and they held a palaver, and an _indaba_, and a _punchayet_, and a pow-wow on the edge of the Desert; and the Camel came chewing on milkweed _most_"