Answers to These Questions for the perfect background check in India

Questions to Address before Conducting Criminal Background Checks

Criminal background checks are a critical part of the pre-employment screening. To provide a safe working environment to their employees, it is important for organizations to conduct criminal background checks on their potential candidates.

Most of the larger organizations in India avail of the services of a professional background screening partner to conduct the checks as per their requirement. For smaller organizations, if they are conducting the criminal background checks themselves, it is important for them to scrutinize the details very carefully so that they do not unknowingly recruit someone who is not right for the organization.

In India, criminal background checks are carried out through an all-inclusive litigation searches of court records involving civil or criminal cases. The data is collected from the information dispersed by the courts. These include:

Criminal Suit - Magistrate Court

Criminal Suit District Court

Criminal Suit State Court

District Civil Courts & Tribunals

District Court

High Courts

Magistrate Court

State Courts

Supreme Court

1.What is your objective of conducting criminal background checks?

Comprehensive criminal record checks are the best resort to having a workplace that is safe from any criminal activity. It gives an assurance to the organization that they are hiring individuals who have a clean past. This involves searching relevant databases like civil litigation database, regulatory compliance database and criminal database that consists of the candidate’s name.

Always ensure that you are carrying out legitimate database searches while conducting an extensive criminal background check on a potential candidate. Check both Indian and global databases to verify any association of the candidate with organized crime or any known mention in any litigation.

2 Who should you consider for conducting criminal background checks?

Every new employee or potential candidate should be scrutinized by conducting criminal background checks before they enter your workplace. Even a single discrepancy can have a drastic effect on the overall workplace safety, brand reputation and motivation of the current employees to continue working in your organization.

3.What database can be used to conduct criminal background checks?

In India, the database can be availed from State and Supreme Court’s public records and district magistrate. For availing the information pertaining to litigation, visit the National Crime Research Bureau and the CBI’s most wanted lists. In order to get the defaulters’ list, search the databases of RBI, Central Vigilance Committee’s list of corrupt officials and SEBI database.

4.What is the process of conducting criminal background checks?

Select a professional screening company vendor that has adequate knowledge and requisite skill sets along with access to indexed criminal records and litigation databases. Before starting the process, inform the candidate that you will be conducting the criminal background check by taking their written consent.

5.What is the process of Employment Verification in India?

The preferred method of employment verification in India is to verify the entire employment history. associated experience letters and salary slips of each employer is also reviewed as a part of the process. As a part of this process the earlier or the existing employer will receive verification from the verification directly from the HR department or from third party verification agency. Communication and information is expected from every point of contact on aspects like

• Duration of the past mentioned employments

• Designation worked in past

• Salary withdrawn from the mentioned employments

• Details of the Reporting manager

• Records of Performance and professionalism

• Actual reasons for leaving the past employment

• Probabilities of rehiring in the past companies

• Any performance issues encountered in past job experiences

Lourdes Fernandes is the Business Head of cFIRST Background Checks, one of the leading employee background verification companies in India. Lourdes is an industry veteran and often writes about the articles.