Indian Police clearance for Canada ITA from Scotland UK

Anonymous · July 6, 2020, 5:00am

Can you please offer me some advice on the following.

Indian PCC for Canada ITA - Not living at Indian address

Got an ITA for Canada PR and applied for PCC – India through VFS at Consulate General India Edinburgh as I currently live in Scotland, UK.

I have an Indian passport which has a Bangalore address where I was living while working there and it was a rented flat.
Obviously, I no longer live there and my family lives in New Delhi. So while submitting PCC application, I have entered my permanent address as my family’s address in Delhi.

My understanding is for Indian living abroad, PCC applications through their local embassy/consulate would be forwarded to the concerned passport-issuing authority (PIA) in India.

In my case, I believe that would be Bangalore.

Is Bangalore’s address on passport and different Delhi’s permanent address be a concern?

I mean I do not know how they check records (in case of PCC for Indians abroad) but do the police visit the address and check?

I am not even sure who is living there now and whether the people I knew in the building are still living or have moved on.

Basically, if the address on your passport is not your permanent address, will it be an issue?

And when the consulate sends the application for verification in India, would you know if it will be sent to passport office in Bangalore or Delhi ?

How much time does PCC application take?

Secondly, while submitting PCC application, lady at VFS counter said there is no defined timeline for getting PCC – may take any number of months – 1, 2, 4, 6 etc.

Can Canada PTA be extended based on delay in Indian PCC application?

As the ITA for PR is valid for 90 days and assuming PCC does not come, I believe there is a way to seek extension.

What is generally the period of extension, if given ? and if i demonstrate that I have actually applied for PCC and still waiting (through receipts and acknowledgement) will they actually give me an extension ?

Anil_Gupta · July 6, 2020, 5:21am

Applied for PCC at Indian Embassy when staying outside India?

If your passport was issued in India, the embassy sends the request to Indian passport office and waits for their response.
There is no physical Police verification done at the Indian address in this case.
If the passport was issued by Indian Consulate, the PCC is issued immediately with no delays.
Most of the time, it is issued within a week.

More information about Indian Police Certificates.

Can Canada PTA be extended based on delay in Indian PCC application?

Official Canada guidance says that you should apply for Police Certificate as soon as possible i.e. even before you are invited for ITA to avoid breaching the 90 day deadline.

Nevertheless, they have documented that if you are facing delays in getting PCC, you can write a letter explaining your situation and the proof of PCC application submission (with date).

This is Canada CIC’s official response:

“In exceptional circumstances, some applicants may experience delays in obtaining police certificates within the 90-calendar-day timeframe allocated to submit a complete e-APR.
In such situations, applicants should submit a letter of explanation as part of their application and include proof of having requested a police certificate (e.g., a copy of the receipt obtained when they requested the police certificate from the prescribed authority).
The officer’s discretion may be required in assessing whether police certificates that do not fall within these time limits are valid and reliable for the purpose of evaluating admissibility.”

But, as per my experience, you should be able to get PCC within a month.

We recently applied in USA and got it within a week since our passport was issued by Indian embassy itself.

In your case, your last passport was issued by Passport office in Bangalore, so Indian Embassy may just send a request to them for verification.

There is no physical police verification done at that address. Don’t worry.

You are any way not expected to be present at that address even if they visit physically.