Character Certificate (Police) in Arunachal Pradesh

What is a character certificate in Arunachal Pradesh?

A character certificate in Arunachal Pradesh is an official statement that nothing adverse is recorded against a named person. The Government of Arunachal Pradesh delivers it through the Arunachal eServices portal at eservice.arunachal.gov.in, a ServicePlus platform built and hosted by the National Informatics Centre.

Arunachal Pradesh is one of the states where reading the portal's own service list saves a wasted application, because it lists two different documents under two different departments:

• Under District Administration: "Issuance of Character Certificate", sitting alongside the Inner Line Permit, Permanent Residence Certificate, Temporary Residence Certificate, Income Certificate, Schedule Tribe Certificate, Dependent Certificate and Marriage Certificate.
• Under the Police Department: "Police Clearance Certificate", sitting alongside Tenant Verification, Domestic Help Verification, No Objection Certificate for Tender, Lost Certificate, and the Online Duty Pass Management System.

Both are real, both are online, and they are not interchangeable. An employer asking for a "character certificate" usually means the District Administration document; a visa, licensing or tender process asking for police antecedents means the Police Clearance Certificate. Ask before you apply.

District administration websites confirm the online route in plain words. The West Kameng district site's Character Certificate page reads: "Can be Applied online and obtained online", pointing to eservice.arunachal.gov.in, with the Jan Suvidha Kendra at the DC Office, Bomdila as the physical counter.

Who can and who cannot apply?

You can apply if you are an individual citizen resident in Arunachal Pradesh with an address a district office or police station can verify. The service description page for the Police Clearance Certificate records the eligible applicant as an individual citizen and states that registration on the portal is required. There is no income test, no caste criterion and no age slab: unlike the Schedule Tribe Certificate or Permanent Residence Certificate on the same portal, this is a records check rather than a status entitlement.

You cannot apply on this portal for an address outside Arunachal Pradesh. Arunachal Pradesh's district administration and police can report only on the period and area within their own jurisdiction; a previous address in Assam or elsewhere has to be verified by that state.

You are also not eligible for a clean certificate while a criminal case or FIR is pending against you. The certificate records what the register shows.

One more thing the portal states directly: the Police Clearance Certificate is a regulatory service, meaning the government may approve or reject the application. It is not an automatic entitlement that follows from paying a fee.

What documents are required?

For the Police Clearance Certificate, Arunachal eServices lists a notably short requirement: upload scanned copies of the originals of:

• A recent passport-size photograph.
• An ID proof: Aadhaar card, voter ID or PAN card.

That is the entire published list. For comparison, the same portal's Tenant Verification service demands ID proof of both tenant and landlord, and its No Objection Certificate for Tender demands the firm's registration certificate, so the two-document list for the Police Clearance Certificate is genuinely what the department asks for, not an omission.

For the District Administration character certificate, the portal's own service page and the district Jan Suvidha Kendra are the authority on what to bring. Carry your identity document and a proof of the address you want certified, in original, when you visit.

The service description record for the Police Clearance Certificate also carries the line that the applicant does not have to provide enclosures or annexures beyond what the application itself asks for, another sign that Arunachal has kept this service deliberately light.

How to apply for a character certificate in Arunachal Pradesh

1. Open eservice.arunachal.gov.in and register. The service description page records that registration is required to avail the service. Use a mobile number you actually hold, because it carries the updates.
2. Choose the right service. On the department-wise services page, pick "Issuance of Character Certificate" under District Administration, or "Police Clearance Certificate" under the Police Department, depending on which document has been asked of you.
3. Scan and upload the documents. For the Police Clearance Certificate that means the recent passport-size photograph and one ID proof: Aadhaar, voter ID or PAN. Scan the originals; photographs of documents taken on a phone at an angle are the commonest upload rejection.
4. Fill the application carefully. Enter your name exactly as it appears on the identity document, your parentage, date of birth and the complete address to be verified, with the district. The address determines which office and which police station handle the enquiry.
5. Pay whatever fee the portal displays at the payment step, and save the acknowledgement with the application reference number.
6. Cooperate with the verification and, once approved, download the certificate from the portal; district pages confirm the certificate is "obtained online" as well as applied for online.

How to apply through the Jan Suvidha Kendra

1. Visit the Jan Suvidha Kendra at your Deputy Commissioner's office — West Kameng's, for example, is at the DC Office, Bomdila, PIN 790001.
2. Carry your identity document and photograph in original, with photocopies.
3. Ask the operator to file the application on eservice.arunachal.gov.in in your name. This is the same online queue, not a separate paper channel.
4. Pay the government fee shown on screen, collect the printed acknowledgement, and note the application reference number.

How do you check the application status?

Log in to eservice.arunachal.gov.in with the account you registered and open the application by its reference number. ServicePlus portals track an application through submission, departmental scrutiny and approval, and the status screen is the only reliable place to see which stage you are at.

If the portal itself misbehaves. A login that will not work, an upload that will not accept a file, a payment that debited without an acknowledgement, the helpline to use is 155250, published on the eServices portal for the Department of Information Technology at the Civil Secretariat, Itanagar. The National Informatics Centre state office, also at the Civil Secretariat in Itanagar, is listed on 0360 2212919.

Why do applications get delayed in Arunachal Pradesh?

• The wrong service was chosen, a District Administration character certificate applied for when the police clearance was wanted, or the reverse.
• The uploaded photograph or ID scan is unreadable, cropped or in an unsupported format.
• The name or parentage on the form does not match the identity document uploaded.
• The address entered is not the address the applicant actually lives at, so the verifying officer cannot find them.
• The applicant was unreachable on the registered mobile number during the enquiry.
• A criminal case or FIR is pending, which the certificate then has to record.

Because Arunachal's districts are large and thinly connected, an enquiry that would take days elsewhere can take longer here. The service description page records the processing time as "NA": no published timeline, so apply well ahead of the deadline your employer or licensing authority has set rather than assuming a fortnight.

What does it cost, and what about agents?

Arunachal eServices does not publish a fee for the character certificate or the Police Clearance Certificate on its public service pages. That means one rule applies: pay only the amount the portal itself displays at the payment step, or the fee the Jan Suvidha Kendra counter shows you on its screen, and nothing else. Take the receipt every time.

Nobody at a district office, a police station or a Jan Suvidha Kendra is entitled to money beyond the notified charge. Agents promising a "quick" character certificate for a few thousand rupees are selling a queue position that does not exist; the file still reaches the same district office and the same verifying officer. Given that the police service needs only a photograph and one ID proof, there is very little an agent can legitimately do for you here that you cannot do yourself in ten minutes.

If a payment is demanded on the side, or if verification simply has not started, escalate to the Deputy Commissioner's office for your district and to the Superintendent of Police, and report portal-side problems on 155250.