Arcobacter is an important and emerging food borne pathogen worldwide, which causes gastroenteritis and occasional septicaemia in human beings. The conventional cultural methods and traditional diagnostic tools are laborious and take long time to detect Arcobacter spp., and misidentification warrants comparing with molecular method(s). Therefore, the present study was designed for optimising real time – polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using SYBR green PCR master mix and published primers of multiplex PCR, for detection of two Arcobacter spp. (Arcobacter butzleri and Arcobacter cryaerophilus) and apply it for screening of chicken meat samples for Arcobacters. Real time PCR assay was used for the detection of Arcobacter from the enriched broth and out of a total of 50 chicken meat samples collected from different retail meat shops of Bareilly region, Uttar Pradesh, India, 28 (56%) samples were found positive for Arcobacter spp. This is the first report from India regarding optimization and applicability of real-time PCR for detection of Arcobacters in meat samples. Reports regarding detection and prevalence of Arcobacters from the country are very few, and in this scenario the wide applicability of the molecular tool of real-time PCR is suggested for knowing the real prevalence and magnitude of Arcobacter infection in a variety of clinical samples of animals and humans as well as various sources of foods.