Almost every page on this subject will sell you an affidavit. Very few will tell you that the affidavit is not the hard part, that it is not proof the document was ever yours, and that for some of the commonest losses — a PAN card, an Aadhaar letter, and even a passport — the office concerned does not want a notarised affidavit on stamp paper at all.
A lost document affidavit is a statement on oath, made by the person who held the document, setting out four things: what has been lost, when and how, what was done about it, and what will happen if it turns up. It is addressed to whichever authority is being asked to issue a duplicate — a passport office, an examination board, a transport authority, a bank, a registrar, an employer.
It has one job. The office issuing a duplicate is taking a risk: there may now be two originals of the same document in the world, one of them in unknown hands. The affidavit is how that risk is moved onto you. You state the facts on oath; if the facts were false, the consequences under the criminal law fall on you, not on the clerk who issued the duplicate.
That is the whole of its function, and understanding it saves people a great deal of money and several wasted trips.
This is the misunderstanding that costs people the most time, and almost nothing written on this subject says it plainly, so here it is.
An affidavit proves nothing about ownership. It is your account of a loss. It does not establish that the passport existed, that the marksheet was issued to you, or that the vehicle was registered in your name.
Those facts are proved from the issuing office's own records — the passport file, the examination register, the vehicle database, the bank ledger, the register of members. The office checks its record; the affidavit only explains why the physical paper is not in your hand.
Two practical consequences follow.
First, if the issuing office cannot trace you in its own records, no affidavit will rescue the application. People occasionally come to us wanting an affidavit to prove they passed an examination the board has no record of, or that a property was registered in a year for which the sub-registrar has no entry. An affidavit cannot manufacture a record. What is needed in those cases is a search of the correct office, in the correct year, under the correct spelling of the name — which is a different piece of work, and often a successful one.
Second, anything that helps the office find its own record is worth more than the affidavit. A photocopy of the lost document. A photograph of it on an old phone. The certificate number, roll number, file number or registration number. The year and the office. An email that once had a scan attached. Before you order anything from us, look for those, because they shorten everything that follows.
Get into the habit now, for the documents you still have. A photograph of every important document, kept in one folder, costs nothing and turns a three-week problem into a three-day one. The people who recover quickly from a lost wallet are almost always the ones who photographed its contents at some point.
Send the document name, the issuing office and any old copy or number you still have. We will tell you what that office needs — including if it does not need an affidavit. Nothing payable in advance.
Losing a document is not an offence. Nobody has committed a crime because a marksheet fell out of a bag. So the police do not ordinarily register an FIR for a loss — they record it as a lost article report, which is an entry of the fact that you reported it.
If you are alleging that the document was stolen — a pickpocket, a snatched bag, a burglary, a break-in to a car — that is a different matter. Theft is a cognizable offence and an FIR is the right document. The distinction is not a formality: it depends on what actually happened, and you should not claim a theft that did not occur in order to get a stronger piece of paper.
| Lost article report | FIR | |
|---|---|---|
| When it applies | The document was mislaid, dropped, left behind, or lost in transit. No offence alleged. | The document was stolen — pickpocketed, snatched, taken in a burglary or from a vehicle. |
| How it is filed | In Delhi, online through the police lost-report service, and downloadable by you at once. Also at the police station. | At the police station with jurisdiction over the place of the offence; e-FIR facilities exist for certain categories. |
| Cost | Free. | Free. No police station may charge for registering an FIR. |
| What you get | A report with a reference number, which most offices accept as proof that the loss was reported. | A copy of the FIR, which you are entitled to free of cost. |
| Which offices want it | Most boards, universities, RTOs, banks and employers. | Offices dealing with high-value or identity-critical documents, and any case where theft is actually being alleged. The passport annexure itself asks when an FIR was lodged. |
Delhi: the lost report is online and free. Delhi Police run a lost-report service where you enter the details yourself, and the report is generated for you to download without visiting a police station and without paying anyone. If somebody has offered to “get your police report made” for a fee in Delhi, that is a fee for something you can do yourself in a few minutes. We say so on our own service page for it, and we would rather you knew.
One caution. A downloadable online report is not always accepted where an office insists on a report signed and stamped at the police station — some embassies and some banks do. Ask the office first, because it costs one phone call and saves a second round.
A passport in lieu of a lost or damaged passport is one of the commonest reasons people look for this affidavit, and it is where the money is most often wasted. So this section is specific.
The Passport Seva document list for a re-issue in lieu of a lost or damaged passport asks for, among other things, a police report in original and an affidavit stating how and where the passport got lost or damaged, in the prescribed annexure format — together with proof of present address, proof of date of birth, and a self-attested photocopy of the first two and last two pages of the old passport including the ECR/non-ECR page, if you have it.
Notice the order of importance. The police report is a separate, mandatory item. The affidavit does not replace it, and no amount of stamp paper will make an application go through without it.
"State how and when the passport was lost/ damaged and when FIR was lodged at which Police Station and how many passports were lost/ damaged earlier?"
The annexure then requires you to state whether the lost passport was used for travel, whether any travel concession or allowance was received from Government, your residence abroad if any, whether there was ever any objection to the passport, and whether you were ever deported at Government expense and whether that expense was reimbursed. It ends with an undertaking to exercise greater care of the new passport, and an acknowledgment that action may follow under the Passports Act, 1967 if passports are repeatedly lost.
Source linked at the foot of this page.
Two of those questions deserve a moment. “How many passports were lost or damaged earlier?” is not idle curiosity — a repeated loss is treated as a serious matter and can affect what you are issued and for how long. And the question about deportation at Government expense is there because that expense is recoverable; an unreimbursed repatriation can block a fresh passport until it is settled.
Now the part that saves money. The current Passport Seva instruction booklet describes these annexures as being made on plain paper. It does not ask for non-judicial stamp paper and it does not ask for attestation by a notary.
An older specimen affidavit for this same purpose is still sitting on the same website, and that one does say non-judicial stamp paper, attested before a judicial officer or notary public. It is the one that turns up first in search results, it is the one photocopy shops hand out, and it is the reason a great many applicants pay for a notarised affidavit they were never asked for.
What to do: ask the Passport Seva Kendra or the collection centre handling your file which form they want, in that specific case, before you pay anybody for stamp paper. If they accept the plain-paper self-declaration, that is the cheaper and equally valid route.
Send us the case — lost or damaged, whether you have the old passport numbers, and which Kendra is handling it. We will tell you what that office is asking for at the moment. Nothing payable in advance.
Marksheets, passing certificates, migration certificates and degree certificates are the losses that panic people most, usually because a job offer or an admission depends on producing one by a date. The good news is that the record exists; the board or university issued it and still holds the entry. What you are applying for is a duplicate from that record.
For CBSE, the duplicate is applied for on the board's own form, with its prescribed fee. The board's guidelines note that documents are issued after a stated number of working days, that an urgent fee can be paid where a certificate is needed faster, and that a separate form must be used for each certificate. What matters most, though, is this:
"Triplicate copy or of further copies of qualifying certificates shall not be issued unless the Controller of Examinations is further satisfied by some documentary evidence that the duplicate copy has also been actually lost / destroyed."
In other words: the first duplicate is close to routine. The second is not. If you have already been issued a duplicate and lost that too, the board wants documentary evidence — which in practice means a police report and a properly drafted affidavit explaining the second loss, and it may still refuse. This is the case where the affidavit genuinely carries weight, and it is worth getting right.
Source linked at the foot of this page.
State boards and universities differ widely, and several of them ask for more than CBSE does. The requirements you will meet include:
Do not let anyone tell you an affidavit replaces the application. It does not. The duplicate comes from the board, on the board's form, against the board's fee. Every year people pay somebody for an affidavit and a notary stamp and then discover that nobody has actually applied to the board. The affidavit is a supporting document, never the application itself.
A duplicate registration certificate is applied for on Form 26 under the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, and the form itself contains the declaration people imagine they need a separate affidavit for.
Form 26 (See Rule 53), Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 — intimation of loss or destruction of a certificate of registration and application for a duplicate
"the Certificate of Registration of my/our Motor Vehicle Registration Mark of which is … has been lost / destroyed / completely written off soiled / torn/mutilated"
"to the best of my/our knowledge the registration of the vehicle has not been suspended or cancelled under the provision of the Act"
"I/ We have reported the lost to the Police station … (date)."
So the form already requires you to identify the vehicle, characterise the loss, confirm the registration is not suspended or cancelled, and name the police station and the date on which you reported the loss. The police report is built into the process, not an optional extra.
Source linked at the foot of this page.
Whether a separate affidavit is also required depends on the transport authority. Many RTOs ask for one alongside Form 26, particularly where there is a hypothecation to be dealt with or where the vehicle has changed hands. Many do not. Ask the RTO, or ask us to ask, before assuming.
Two vehicle-specific points that catch people out:
If the vehicle papers were in a bag that also held identity documents, treat the loss as one event but the recoveries as separate tracks, and keep a single sheet listing every document, the office it goes to, what that office needs, and the date you applied. It sounds bureaucratic. It is the difference between six weeks and six months.
Tell us everything that was in the bag. We will come back with a single list — which office, which form, which police paper, which fee, and in what order — before anything is drafted. Nothing payable in advance.
A lost cheque book, passbook, fixed deposit receipt, insurance policy document or share certificate is not quite the same problem, because here the institution is not merely issuing a duplicate of a record — it is exposing itself to the risk that someone else is holding the original and will try to use it.
So institutions ask for two documents, and people frequently supply only one:
Your sworn account of what was lost, when, how, and that it has not been pledged, sold, transferred or deposited with anyone. This is the document this page is about.
A separate undertaking in which you agree to make good any loss the institution suffers if the original surfaces and is acted on. This is the document the institution actually relies on, and it is frequently required on stamp paper, sometimes with a surety who signs alongside you.
An affidavit without an indemnity will usually be sent back. They are not the same document and one does not contain the other. If a bank or a company has given you a list, read it for the word “indemnity” before you order anything.
For share certificates in particular, the company's own procedure governs, and it typically involves an affidavit, an indemnity bond, a newspaper advertisement where the value crosses the threshold the company or the regulator has set, and a resolution of the board or its committee before the duplicate is issued. Where the shares are in dematerialised form there is no certificate to lose, which is the strongest practical argument for dematerialising old holdings before they become somebody's inheritance problem.
For an insurance policy document, the insurer's own indemnity format is normally supplied by the insurer. Use theirs. A well-drafted document in the wrong format is still the wrong format.
Where a lost document belongs to a deceased relative — a fixed deposit receipt, a share certificate, a policy — the loss and the succession are two separate problems, and the second one is usually the larger. Our will drafting guide explains what the institution will ask for once succession enters the picture.
This section exists because it is the honest answer for a large share of the people who arrive on this page, and because nobody selling affidavits writes it.
| Lost document | Is an affidavit usually needed? | What actually gets it replaced |
|---|---|---|
| PAN card | No | A reprint request against the existing PAN, online, with a fee. The record already exists and the number does not change. |
| Aadhaar letter or card | No | Download or order a reprint using the Aadhaar number or the registered mobile. Nothing is “lost” in the sense that matters — the record is intact. |
| Voter ID (EPIC) | Generally no | A replacement application to the electoral registration office; the e-EPIC can usually be downloaded. Some offices ask for a loss report. |
| Ration card | Sometimes | State food department procedure. Some states ask for an affidavit or a loss report, some do not. |
| Passport | Yes — in the prescribed annexure | Police report in original plus the annexure affidavit, with the rest of the re-issue file. See the section above on whether stamp paper is needed. |
| Marksheet or certificate | Often yes | The board's or university's own duplicate application and fee. The affidavit supports it. |
| Registration certificate (RC) | Sometimes | Form 26 with the police station and date of report stated in it. Some RTOs want an affidavit as well. |
| FD receipt, share certificate, policy | Yes, with an indemnity bond | The institution's own format — affidavit plus indemnity, sometimes with a surety and a newspaper notice. |
| Registered sale deed | Yes | A certified copy from the sub-registrar's office, which is available because the deed was registered. An affidavit and usually a police report and newspaper notice support it, particularly where a bank is involved. |
| Marriage certificate | Sometimes | A duplicate from the registering authority against its record. See our duplicate marriage certificate service. |
If your answer is in the “No” column, stop here. You do not need us and you do not need to pay anyone. Go to the issuing authority's own online service, pay its fee, and you will have your replacement. We would rather you left this page having saved the money than bought something you did not need.
There is a second situation where the affidavit is genuinely required even though the issuing office does not ask for one: when a third party wants your written account of the loss. An employer verifying credentials. A bank explaining a gap in KYC papers. An embassy asking why a document cannot be produced. A court, where the loss is part of the facts of a case. In those cases the affidavit is not supporting a duplicate application at all — it is evidence of your explanation, and it should be drafted with that reader in mind.
A lost document affidavit is short. Its value is entirely in whether the right things are in it and whether they are stated with enough precision to be checked.
Full name exactly as it appears on the lost document, father's or husband's name where the office uses that convention, age, and full address. Where the name on the lost document differs from your current name or current identity papers, that has to be addressed — usually with a one and same person affidavit alongside, not by quietly using one version.
Its name, its number, the office that issued it, and the date of issue, so far as you know them. “My educational certificate” is not enough. “Senior School Certificate Examination marksheet, roll number …, year …, issued by …” is.
A date, or the narrowest range you can honestly give, and a place. This is the anchor the whole document hangs on, and vagueness here is the commonest reason an affidavit reads as manufactured.
The actual circumstances, in a sentence or two. Left in a vehicle. Lost in transit between two cities. Missing after a house move. Damaged by water. Not a formula, and not an invented burglary.
The search you made and the report you lodged — the police station, the date, and the report or FIR number. If there was a newspaper notice, the paper and the date. This is the part that turns a bare assertion into something an office can verify.
That the document has not been pledged, deposited, sold, transferred or handed to any person, and that it is not the subject of any security or lien. Financial institutions require this; it is the risk they are actually worried about.
That if the original is found at any time, it will be surrendered to the issuing authority and not used. This is not decoration. It is the clause that makes the duplicate safe to issue.
That a duplicate be issued, named precisely, by the office named precisely. An affidavit addressed to nobody in particular is weaker than one addressed to the authority that will read it.
The statement that the contents are true to your knowledge, with the place and date. An affidavit without a proper verification clause is defective, and some offices do notice.
Send the loss and the office. We will draft it to that office's requirements, in the form it accepts, and tell you honestly if it does not need one. From ₹400, payable after the work.
An affidavit works because a false one is an offence. That is not a scare line at the bottom of a form; it is the whole mechanism by which a piece of paper you wrote about yourself carries weight with a stranger.
Sections 227 and 229, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023
"Whoever, being legally bound by an oath or by an express provision of law to state the truth, or being bound by law to make a declaration upon any subject, makes any statement which is false, and which he either knows or believes to be false or does not believe to be true, is said to give false evidence."
The punishment under Section 229 is imprisonment of either description which may extend to seven years, and a fine which may extend to ten thousand rupees, where the false evidence is given in a stage of a judicial proceeding; and imprisonment which may extend to three years with a fine which may extend to five thousand rupees in any other case.
Source linked at the foot of this page.
Read the definition carefully, because it is wider than people assume. It covers a statement you do not believe to be true — not only one you know to be false. Writing a confident date you are actually guessing at is inside that definition. So is adopting somebody else's standard wording about circumstances that were not yours.
And the consequences are not only criminal. Where an affidavit was used to obtain a duplicate, a false one puts the duplicate itself at risk — a passport can be impounded, a certificate withdrawn, a claim repudiated by an insurer, an employment offer cancelled on a background check. The document you went to all this trouble for becomes worth less than nothing.
Where we stop. We do not draft an affidavit saying a document was stolen when you have told us it was mislaid, and we do not draft one saying a document was lost when you have told us it is with a person who will not return it. The second situation is a real one and it has a real answer — a legal notice, a complaint, or in some cases a suit — but it is not this document, and putting it in this document would be the offence described above rather than a solution to your problem.
From the applications we see sent back, in rough order of how often it happens:
Nine of those ten are cured before anything is drafted, by finding out what the office wants and writing it down. That is the part of this work that actually takes the time, and it is the part we do first.
| Item | Who charges it | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Our drafting charge | Us | From ₹400. Same day in the ordinary case. Payable after the work, never in advance. |
| Police lost report | Police | Free. In Delhi it can be filed and downloaded online. Nobody should be charging you for it. |
| FIR | Police | Free, and a copy is your entitlement. Only where an offence is actually alleged. |
| Stamp paper | State government | Only where the office requires it. A small fixed amount; the exact value depends on the state and the purpose. |
| Notary attestation | Notary | Only where the office requires it. Charged at the notary's rate. Not required for a plain-paper self-declaration. |
| Newspaper notice | Newspaper | Only where the institution requires it. Varies widely by publication and size. |
| Duplicate document fee | Issuing authority | The board, RTO, passport office or registrar's own fee, at its own rate, paid to it directly. Urgent processing costs more where it is offered. |
| Indemnity bond | Us, plus stamp duty | Where a bank, insurer or company requires one. Quoted separately once we know the institution's format. |
Two standing promises. You pay nothing in advance — placing the order is free and payment comes after the work. And we do not draft a declaration we know to be untrue, whoever is asking and whatever it is worth to them.
Tell us what was lost and which office is asking. If it needs an affidavit we will draft it properly, in the form that office accepts. If it does not, we will tell you that instead — and there will be nothing to pay.
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