Parivahan Sewa (parivahan.gov.in) is the official e-governance portal of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), Government of India. It powers the entire vehicle and driving licence management ecosystem across all states. Its sister system, VAHAN, manages the nationwide vehicle registration database. Together, Parivahan and VAHAN issue millions of digitally signed documents every year — but most PDF viewers cannot verify these signatures automatically. Here's everything you need to know.
Parivahan is the citizen-facing portal that provides services like driving licence issuance, renewal, and status tracking; vehicle registration; fitness certificate issuance; and permit management. It integrates with all 36 state/UT Road Transport Offices (RTOs) across India.
VAHAN (Vehicle Registration System) is the back-end database that stores records for all registered vehicles in India. VAHAN data is used by insurance companies, banks, law enforcement, and the judiciary to verify vehicle details.
Driving Licence (DL): Available as a digitally signed PDF via DigiLocker or directly from the Parivahan portal. Legally equivalent to the physical DL card nationwide.
Vehicle Registration Certificate (RC): The RC PDF from Parivahan is accepted by courts, insurers, banks, and RTO offices as proof of vehicle ownership.
Fitness Certificate: Issued for commercial vehicles confirming they meet roadworthiness standards, signed by the authorised testing station via the Parivahan system.
Permit Documents: National and state permits for commercial vehicles are issued as digitally signed PDFs through Parivahan.
All of these documents carry digital signatures issued by NIC (National Informatics Centre) on behalf of MoRTH and the respective state RTOs.
NIC is a fully licensed Certifying Authority under India's IT Act, 2000. However, Adobe Acrobat and other mainstream PDF readers trust only certificates from their pre-installed AATL (Adobe Approved Trust List). Since NIC is not on this commercial list, any PDF signed by NIC — including all Parivahan documents — will display as "signature validity unknown" or "signature not valid" in standard PDF readers.
This does not mean the document is fake. It means your PDF reader hasn't been configured to trust Indian government CAs. VerifySign.in bridges this gap automatically.
Car Purchase and Sale: When buying or selling a used vehicle, both parties need to verify the RC is genuine and not tampered with. A verified Parivahan RC PDF builds confidence and reduces fraud risk.
Vehicle Insurance: Insurers increasingly accept Parivahan PDFs for policy issuance, but some require the documents to have verifiable digital signatures.
Vehicle Loans: Banks require RC proof when processing vehicle loans. A digitally verified RC eliminates the need for in-person document verification.
Legal and Court Proceedings: For road accident cases or ownership disputes, courts may require digitally authentic vehicle documents.
Step 1: Download your DL, RC, or other document PDF from the Parivahan portal or DigiLocker.
Step 2: Visit VerifySign.in.app and upload the file.
Step 3: VerifySign.in identifies the NIC/Parivahan certificate chain and runs a full cryptographic signature check.
Step 4: You get a detailed verification result in seconds — signer, timestamp, and validity — with the option to download a verified LTV-embedded copy.
Instant digital signature verification for any government PDF — free, secure, no software needed.
Go to VerifySign.in →