Apostille in India is a comprehensive procedure that has been recently decentralized by the central government and now it has been carried out by the Ministry of External Affairs. The Ministry of External Affairs also has regional process branches into different kinds of cities so that the overall process can begin from the regional level, then to the state level and then can come under the custody of the Ministry of External Affairs. The whole process differentiates whenever it comes to the different types of documents because normally there are three types of legal documents for example personal documents, educational documents, and commercial documents. Hence, to get all of them attested by individuals need to avail the apostille service so that there is no issue in the long run.
The step-by-step approach of apostille services are mentioned as follows:
- The notary attestation: This will be the primary step in the authentication and will make sure that attestation of the educational and personal documents will be getting proper certification from the notary. This will be done at the regional level from the lawyer or at the collector office.
- The home department attestation: This is the state-level organisation that will certify the personal documents of the individuals and it is also responsible for the legalisation of documents that are issued into the same government of the state.
- HRD attestation: HRD is the human resource development of the state which will solely certify the educational documents. This particular certificate verification is a significant factor in the whole process of authentication and is required to be done by the university or board depending upon the documents issued in the whole process.
- SDM attestation: Sub-divisional magistrate will be the alternative for the state attestation in some of the cases and this particular concept has to be undertaken when home department attestation or HRD is not preferable.
- Chamber of commerce attestation: The chamber of commerce will be the business organisation and this is the first step of verification in the commercial documents before legalisation by the Ministry of External Affairs and there is no state government involved in the cases of commercial documents.
- Ministry of External Affairs attestation: This particular concept is the arm of the central government that will manage and align different kinds of affairs that will provide them with sticker and stamp depending on the overall requirements. This is the final step of legalisation when both the home country and destination country will be the members of the convention.
The apostille services being undertaken by the organizations will always provide the people with the right kind of assistance in terms of procuring the apostille sticker or Ministry of External Affairs stem from the government perfectly. Sometimes it becomes very much difficult for the individuals to carry out the process on their own which is the main reason that availing the services of organizations that provide attestation and apostille services is very much important to ensure convenience and a higher level of comfort in the whole process.