Legalization / Attestation is a process of witnessing documents by authorized person/ Departments/authorities with their official seal and signature. This attestation confirms that, the specified document has been issued by that mentioned department and Seal and signature on that particular document is authentic. IVS specializes in attestation / legalization of documents and can assist you in the process, few common type of attestations/ legalizations are as under.
ATTESTATION FROM MINISTRY OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS, NEW DELHI Attestation/Apostille from MEA can be done after attestation is done from relevant state authorities. For Example in case of Educational Documents document has to be attested from concerned state education department first. In case of personal documents, document needs to be attested from concerned home department prior to MEA attestation.
An apostille is a certificate that authenticates the origin of personal, educational or commercial documents.Apostille can only be issued for documents issued in one country, party to the Apostille convention and that are to be used in another country which is also a party to the convention. Essentially, Apostille is an international attestation that is acceptable in about 92 countries, and most of the western world recognises Apostille. For the list of countries that require documents to be apostilled, please refer to the following link: http://www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act=states.listing
HRD attestation is the process of authenticating an educational document. HRD authentication centers are available in each state. If an educational document is required to be attested from ministry of external affairs, then it should be first authenticated by the respective state HRD Department, where university / Board / council is located from and where the document have been issued from.
Home department attestation is a process of authenticating personal documents. If personal document is required to be attested from ministry of external affairs, then it should be first authenticated from the respective state Home department/GAD, where the document has originated.
India Originated documents which are to be produced in other countries have to be legalized from the respective Embassies/consulates in India. To legalize the document from the respective embassy first it should be authenticated from respective sate Home department or Human Resource Department followed by Ministry of external Affairs in New Delhi then the respective Embassy will legalize the document.
Documents can be broadly divided into three major categories for attestation/apostille: