In recent years, we have seen a lot of people migrating abroad in search of better education, employment, or better living conditions. The sad reality is that these people don’t know much about the process of migration other than that they need a valid passport and visa. If you intend to use your documents abroad, you need to get them attested. Documents without attestation have no value in foreign countries. In this article, we will talk about all the things you should know about attestation services in India.
Attestation is the process of verifying your documents by a competent government authority. These authorities will provide you with a certificate and a stamp that would prove the validity of the documents. Here are some important things that you should know about document attestation services in India:
- Certificate attestation is very important if you want to prove the authenticity of your documents abroad.
- You should not get involved in forgery or making and delivering fake documents.
- You need certificate attestation if you wish to obtain a work permit, residence visa, and admission to a foreign college or university.
- If your documents are attested, foreign authorities will be able to believe your document. It is a sign of legitimacy and authenticity.
- Attestation is always done from the country or state where it was issued. For example, if you are born in Maharashtra and completed your education in Kerala, then your documents should be attested by the competent authority in Kerala.
- Certificate attestation can be done for education documents, personal documents, or commercial documents.
- The process of attestation varies slightly from state to state. You need to collect information about the process of document attestation in your state.
The process involved in document attestation
Here is a brief overview of how documents are attested in various states:
- If you want to attest government-approved education documents, you need to go for HRD attestation. Every state has its HRD department. You need to go there and collect relevant information.
- If you want to attest to personal documents like birth certificate, death certificate, will, marriage certificate, affidavit, etc., you need to go for notary attestation.
- If you want to attest to commercial documents, you need to go to your state Chamber of Commerce.
- Personal and non-educational documents can also be attested by the SDM (Sub-divisional Magistrate).
- After you have got the state attestation, you need to go for DFAT attestation to complete the attestation process. DFAT attestation is done by the Ministry of External Affairs. You would also have to go for embassy attestation.
- If you want to travel to the Hague convention member countries, you have to go for DFAT Apostille Attestation.
- Embassy attestation will be done from the embassy of the country you want to travel to. For example, if you want to migrate to UAE, you need to get embassy attestation done by the UAE embassy in New Delhi.
