A government official who keeps records regarding the ownership of land.
〈印度〉（政府的）土地登记员
Example sentencesExamples
He told this correspondent that kanungos and patwaris had been asked by the Revenue Department to vacate encroachments.
The interference in day-to-day administration filtered down to postings of even police constables, patwaris and other low level employees.
Specimens of the Baboo culture in India - from the patwari to the deputy collector and the honorary magistrate - are comic both in their servility to their white superiors and their arrogance towards the common people.
This includes computerising land records so that farmers can secure title-documents without having to grovel before the local patwari (the government land-record keeper).
Origin
From Hindi paṭwārī, from Sanskrit paṭṭa 'document' + pāla 'keeper'.