DIN, the MCA register and what a directorship check finds
One of the few checks where the record is public, precise and fast. It also finds things about a senior candidate that no other check in a package will.
- The DIN links every directorship a person holds or has held, which makes it the one identifier that follows somebody across companies.
- The register is public, so this check is fast and does not depend on anybody choosing to co-operate.
- Holding a directorship is not a finding. An undisclosed one in a competing business is.
- It is the most useful check on the payroll side for senior hires, and on the vendor side for who is behind a supplier.
What a DIN is
A Director Identification Number is a unique number allotted to an individual who is, or intends to become, a director of a company in India. Two properties make it useful for verification.
It is unique to the person, not to a company. One individual has one DIN regardless of how many boards they sit on, so every directorship they hold or have held attaches to the same number. That is a rare thing in verification: an identifier that follows a person across organisations.
It carries a status. Whether the holder is active, deactivated, or disqualified from acting as a director. A disqualification is a specific fact with specific consequences, and it is on the record.
What is on the register
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs maintains the public register of companies, and a good deal of it is genuinely open. For a directorship check the relevant parts are:
- Companies the person is a director of, and their status: active, dormant, under strike-off, struck off, or in liquidation.
- Companies they used to direct, and the dates they were appointed and ceased.
- Registered office addresses, which sometimes connect entities that were not obviously connected.
- Filing history, which says something about how a company is run.
- Charges registered against a company's assets.
- Disqualification, where it applies.
Because this is a public register rather than a request to a third party, it is one of the fastest checks in any package. There is no HR desk to persuade and no records office to wait on. That matters for turnaround: adding it to a package costs almost nothing in time.
What it finds that nothing else does
Every other check in a package examines something the candidate told you about. This one examines something they did not.
An undisclosed directorship
The core finding. Most significant when the company is a competitor, a supplier or a customer of the hiring organisation, because that is a live conflict rather than a historical fact.
A trail of struck-off companies
One struck-off company is common and usually means an idea that did not work. A pattern of them, particularly with short lifespans and incomplete filings, is a different signal and it is visible on the register.
A disqualification
An explicit, recorded fact with legal consequences for what the person may do. It requires no interpretation and it is exactly the kind of thing a CV will not raise.
Timing
The register carries appointment and cessation dates, which means the sequence is visible. A resignation shortly before a company's problems became public is not a finding on its own, and it is a question worth asking.
Connections
Shared registered addresses and overlapping directorships link entities that looked unrelated. On the vendor side this is the check that surfaces a supplier owned by a relative of the person approving its invoices. See verifying the people you never put on payroll.
Holding a directorship is not a finding. A great many people are directors of a family business, a company set up years ago that never traded, or a dormant vehicle nobody has bothered to close. What matters is three things: whether it conflicts with the role, whether it was disclosed, and what the company actually does. A dormant directorship in a family firm from 2014 and an active one in a direct competitor are the same line on a register and completely different facts.
Who should get this check
| Population | Run it? | What you are looking for |
|---|---|---|
| Incoming directors | Always | Disqualification, directorship history, struck-off pattern. The highest-exposure appointment most companies make |
| Senior management and signatories | Yes | Conflicting interests and anything that could bind the company |
| Finance and treasury | Yes | Related-party exposure, read alongside a credit check |
| Procurement and vendor management | Yes | Whether they direct a company that supplies you. This is where it earns its keep most often |
| Vendors and suppliers, as entities | Yes | Standing, who is behind them, and whether they connect to your own people |
| Engineering and product | Sometimes | A directorship in a competing venture, alongside moonlighting |
| General white-collar and field roles | Rarely | The exposure is elsewhere |
The pattern is the same one in scoping by role: this check maps to the signature exposure, and to conflict of interest. Where a role has neither, it is not answering a question you asked.
Reading what comes back
Four questions turn a list of directorships into something useful.
- What does the company actually do? The name tells you little. A company classified under a broad activity code may be anything. Read the object, and where it matters, the filings.
- Is it active? A dormant or struck-off company from years ago carries different weight from a trading one.
- Was it disclosed? Often the more important question than the directorship itself. Someone who declared a family directorship on their application has told you the thing you were about to find.
- Does it touch your business? Competitor, supplier, customer, or a company operating in your market. That is the difference between a fact and a conflict.
As with everything else, the finding goes to the employer with the record behind it, and the decision belongs to the employer. The general principle is in how to read a discrepancy.
Public record, but still a check on a person
One point worth being careful about. The company information on the MCA register is public, and looking up a company is not processing anybody's personal data in any meaningful sense.
Searching for, compiling and reporting information about a named individual is a different thing. That is processing that person's personal data, and it runs on consent like every other check, with the consent record naming it specifically. The fact that the underlying source is public does not remove the obligation, and an employer who assumes it does has made an assumption the DPDP Act does not support.
The check page is directorship and DIN verification, and the senior-hire package is leadership verification.
Questions we get asked
What is a DIN and what does checking it establish?
Is MCA company information public?
What can it find that a CV will not show?
Is holding a directorship a problem in itself?
Which roles should get this check?
Does it need the candidate's consent?
Read next
Where this check finds a supplier owned by somebody who approves its invoices.
Read the guide Leadership verificationThe senior-hire package, where this check does the most work.
See the solution The check itselfWhat GVS reads from the MCA register, and what lands on the case.
Directorship and DINRunning a senior hire or an incoming director?
Tell us the role and we will scope what the register should be asked.
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