Character Certificate (Police) in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu

What is a police character certificate in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu?

A character certificate in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu is the Police Department's written confirmation that its records disclose nothing adverse against a named person at a declared address. The Police Department of the U.T. Administration of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu is the issuing authority, and its headquarters is at Dunetha, Nani Daman.

This is one of India's smaller police jurisdictions, and it works differently from the large states. There is no branded state police certificate portal here of the kind Punjab runs as SAANJH or Karnataka runs through Seva Sindhu. Instead the department publishes a Citizen Portal built under the CCTNS project, the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems programme, which it describes in its own words as "enabling Citizens to send their requests for services to Police through an online citizen service portal (over the internet) and track the status of registered service requests". The portal address the department publishes is citizen.ddpolice.gov.in, and the department notes that this is an additional mode of facility for citizens, meant to give a faster response.

The practical consequence is that in this UT the police station counter remains a real and normal channel, not a fallback. Applicants should plan for both.

Which department issues it, and which one does not?

Readers in this UT lose time on the wrong portal more often than in most states, because the Administration runs a well-built revenue portal that looks like it should cover certificates.

Sugam, at sugam.dddgov.in, belongs to the Revenue Department of the UT Administration. It covers the Collector, Mamlatdar, EOCS and Civil Registrar cum Sub Registrar offices for Daman, Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and its services are record of rights downloads, online mutation, document registration, property registration, rural land tax and Mamlatdar court case status. It also links ration card, driving licence, employment exchange, electricity and PMJAY services.

Sugam does not issue a character certificate, and no Mamlatdar can, because only the police hold the criminal records that a character certificate speaks to. The Police Department at police.ddd.gov.in is the correct starting point.

Who can and who cannot apply?

You can apply for a character certificate in this UT if you reside at an address in Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman or Diu that falls within the jurisdiction of one of the UT's police stations. The Police Department applies no income limit, no caste criterion and no age bar. This is a records check, not a welfare benefit, so none of the eligibility tests attached to income or caste certificates apply.

You cannot apply here for an address in Gujarat or Maharashtra. That matters a great deal in this UT: Silvassa sits on the Vapi–Silvassa road with a workforce that commutes from Gujarat, and Daman's boundary with Valsad district is a few minutes away. Gujarat Police and Maharashtra Police verify their own addresses, and the DNH & DD Police Department reports only on the period and area inside its own jurisdiction. Declaring a Gujarat address on a UT application does not get it verified, it stalls the file.

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

Which police station will handle your application?

The Police Department lists seven police stations across the three districts, and your address decides which one verifies you:

Dadra and Nagar Haveli

• Silvassa Police Station, Vapi-Silvassa Main Road, Zanda Chowk, Silvassa. 0260-2652033
• Khanvel Police Station; Khutli-Dudhani Road, Khanvel. 0260-2677633

Daman

• Nani Daman Police Station; Nani Daman Char Rasta. 0260-2254999
• Coastal Police Station Kadaiya — near Kadaiya Machiwad Primary School, Village Kadaiya, Nani Daman. 0260-2220333
• Coastal Police Station Moti Daman, Bhathaiya Main Road, near Fire Station, Moti Daman. 0260-2230677

Diu

• Diu Police Station to 1st floor, Fort Road, near the Collector office, Diu. 02875-252133
• Coastal Police Station Vanakbara, Bunder Road Jetty, near Gomti Mata Temple, Vanakbara, Diu. 02875-271115

Identifying the right station before you apply is worth the five minutes. In a UT with only seven stations and two coastal stations among them, an application lodged at the wrong counter is easy to make and slow to unpick.

What documents are required?

The UT Police Department has not published a document checklist for this certificate on its website, so plan around what every police verification in India is built on:

• Proof of identity, a government photo ID in your name.
• Proof of the UT address to be verified: ration card, electricity bill, rent agreement or property tax receipt.
• Two passport-size photographs.
• A letter from the employer, institution or authority demanding the certificate, where one exists.

Carry originals as well as photocopies. The verifying officer will want to see something physical that ties you to the address, and producing it at the first visit is the single thing that shortens the enquiry most.

How to apply for a character certificate in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu

1. Start at police.ddd.gov.in and open the Services section, which is where the Police Department lists its citizen-facing services, including the Citizen Portal, vehicle NOC generation, locating your nearest police station, missing person search and proclaimed offender information.
2. Open the UT Citizen Portal at citizen.ddpolice.gov.in, linked from the department's Citizen Portal service page, and register as a citizen. The department describes this channel as the way to send service requests to the police and to track registered requests online.
3. Raise the service request for a character certificate, entering your name, parentage and date of birth exactly as they appear on your identity document, your complete UT address with the district and the police station covering it, and the purpose; job, passport, visa or licence.
4. Pay only the amount the portal displays, and save the acknowledgement with the request number.
5. Stay available for verification at the address you declared, with your original documents to hand.

How to apply at a police station

1. Identify the police station covering your address from the list above, or use the Police Department's Locate Nearest PS service on police.ddd.gov.in.
2. Visit that station with your identity proof, address proof, photographs and, if you have one, the letter from the employer or authority requiring the certificate.
3. Submit the application, and ask the station to record the date of receipt and give you an acknowledgement. That acknowledgement is what you quote in any follow-up.
4. Pay only against a receipt, and keep it.
5. Collect the certificate from the station once the enquiry is complete.

How do you check the status, and what if nothing happens?

If you filed through the Citizen Portal, log in and open the request by its number. The department specifically lists tracking the status of registered service requests as a purpose of the portal. If you applied at a police station, follow up at the station using the acknowledgement, and note the date of every visit.

Where nothing moves, escalate to the Superintendent of Police through the Police Headquarters at Dunetha, Nani Daman, and use the Grievance Redressal section the Police Department publishes on police.ddd.gov.in. The department's web information manager address is phq-dd[at]nic[dot]in, and it invites feedback on content and services through the feedback section of the site. An RTI application, filed through the department's published RTI contacts and application form or through the UT's online RTI portal, is the further step where a request has simply not been acted upon.

What does it cost, and what about agents?

The Police Department of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu does not publish a fee or a processing time for the character certificate on its website, so the only honest guidance is this: pay exactly what the Citizen Portal's payment screen shows, or exactly what the police station charges against a written receipt, and nothing more. Do not accept an amount quoted to you by an intermediary, and never hand cash to a visiting enquiry officer.

This absence of a published fee is precisely the gap agents work in. In a UT with seven police stations, a middleman offering a "fast" character certificate for a few thousand rupees is selling access to a counter you can walk into yourself, in a jurisdiction small enough that the Superintendent of Police's office is reachable from any of the three districts. No agent can shorten the enquiry, because the enquiry is a police station visit to your address.

Keep every receipt. It is your record of what was charged in a service where no published schedule exists to check it against, and it is the first document to produce if anyone asks you for money on the side.

Common reasons for rejection

A character certificate application in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu is usually delayed or refused for one of these reasons, and each has a specific fix.

• The declared address falls outside the UT. Silvassa's commuter belt runs into Gujarat and Daman's boundary sits a few minutes from Valsad district. If the address you give is actually in Gujarat or Maharashtra, the DNH & DD Police Department cannot verify it, because its records and its beat officers only cover the seven stations inside the UT. Fix: apply through the police station or district whose jurisdiction actually contains your residential address, not the one nearest to where you work.

• The application went to the wrong counter. Applicants sometimes go to the Revenue Department's Sugam portal (sugam.dddgov.in) looking for a certificate, since it is the UT's best-known citizen services portal. Sugam handles land, mutation and registration, not police verification, so a request lodged there for a character certificate simply goes nowhere. Fix: use the Police Department's own channels, the CCTNS Citizen Portal at citizen.ddpolice.gov.in or the police station covering your address.

• A pending case or FIR shows against the applicant's name. Since the certificate reports what the station register discloses, an open case or complaint against the applicant, even one still under investigation, is grounds for the police to withhold a clean certificate or note the pending matter. Fix: there is no workaround while the case is active; a certificate issued after the case is resolved will reflect that outcome.

• The name, parentage or date of birth on the application does not match the identity document. A verifying officer matching the application against a voter ID, Aadhaar or ration card that spells the name differently, or carries a different father's name, will stall the file rather than guess which version is correct. Fix: copy these details from the identity document exactly, including spelling and initials, before submitting either online or at the station.

• No proof ties the applicant to the declared address. Because the enquiry is a physical verification, an application with no ration card, electricity bill, rent agreement or property tax receipt in the applicant's name at that address gives the visiting officer nothing to confirm on the spot, and the file is held pending further enquiry. Fix: carry at least one address document, in original, and have it ready when the officer visits or when you submit at the counter.

• The applicant is unavailable for verification. A character certificate depends on the police being able to reach the applicant, or a household member, at the declared address. If the address is locked, vacant, or the applicant has moved without informing the station, the enquiry cannot be completed. Fix: keep a phone number in the application and inform the station of any short absence, or nominate a family member at the address who can respond to the visit.

• Payment made to an intermediary rather than against a receipt. Because the department has not published a fee schedule for this certificate, applicants who pay a middleman an unreceipted amount have no proof of what was paid or for what, and no way to escalate if the certificate never arrives. Fix: pay only what the Citizen Portal's payment screen shows, or what the station charges against a written receipt, and treat any other demand as a red flag to report rather than pay.