Why Emigration Requires Apostille or Attestation Services?

What is Certificate Attestation?

The government of any country possesses right to validate certificates of its natives. But, why validation is needed?  Every country has a set of norms for its citizens. They play pivotal role in verifying authenticity of the natives’ certificates. Such validation is mandatory for citizens but not the foreigners. The process of authenticating documents is known as certificate attestation.

For example, A is a resident of India and he wants to migrate to the US. Being an Indian citizen, he must attest his certificates from the competent authority in India, including state/union territory, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the embassy of the US. Then only, he will be able to settle abroad.

What consequences one can face lacking attestation?

Attestation is legally mandatory. It apparently interprets that one can’t fly abroad without passing through this legal formality. In case it happens, it shall be treated as breaching or violation of laws. The person will be treated as an offender.  Therefore, he will be jailed or penalized.

Do you know about Apostille? 

Apostille is an act of validating certificates/documents. It abolishes the requirement of foreign public documents legalization. The globally recognized Hague Convention has been rendering Apostille services since October 5, 1961. India has been joined this league in 2005. It ideally simplifies the process of attestation in the member countries. It possesses right to stamp personal documents of the applicant. In India, the MEA holds authority of providing Apostille certification.

How many countries recognize Apostille? 

Apostille services remove the hiccups in verifying the prospective migrants as well as NRIs, PIOs and OCIs. In all, 112 countries have attained its membership including India. The rest are: 

Albania	Bosnia and Herzegovina		Czech Republic	Honduras	Lesotho	Monaco	Poland
Andorra	Brazil		Kingdom of Denmark	Hong Kong	Liberia	Montenegro	Portugal
Argentina & Barbuda	Botswana		Dominican Republic	Hungary	Liechtenstein	Morocco	Romania
Armenia	Bulgaria		Ecuador	Iceland	Lithuania	Namibia	Russia
Australia	Burundi	El Salvador		India	Luxembourg	Kingdom of the Netherlands	Saint Lucia
Austria	Burkina Faso	Estonia		Ireland	Macau	New Zealand	Saint Vincent & the Grenadines
Azerbaijan	Cape Verde	Fiji		Israel	Macedonia	Nicaragua	Samoa
Bahamas	Chile	Finland		Italy	Malawi	Niue	San Marino
Bahrain	Colombia	France		Japan	Malta	Norway	Sao Tome and Principe
Barbados	Cook Islands	Georgia		Kazakhstan	Marshall Islands	Oman	Serbia
Belarus	Costa Rica	Germany		Kosovo	Mauritius	Panama	Seychelles
Belgium	Croatia	Greece		Kyrgyzstan	Mexico	Paraguay	Slovakia
Belize	Cyprus	Grenada		Latvia	Moldova	Peru	Slovenia
South Africa	Spain	Suriname		Swaziland	Thailand	Tonga	Trinidad and Tobago
Turkey	Ukraine	United Kingdom		United States	Uruguay	Uzbekistan	Vanuatu
Venezuela	Brunei

What’s the procedure of attestation? 

Certification attestation tips for NRIs, OCIs and PIOs can help in quick doing. They involve two steps for certifying legally:

Preliminary Verification of documents: The preliminary verification of the following documents is conducted by the state or union territory authority. Regional centers are set up for the convenience of the applicants.

• Court documents 
• Administrative documents 
• Notarized acts 
• Official certificates with authentic signature of the competent authority

Legalization: The final attestation is in the hands of the MEA in India. But it does not accept direct applications. Outsourcing entities are deployed to collect applications for attestation. This provision has been effective since July 2012. Thus, outsourcing companies forward the applications to the MEA. But first, they have to categorize all documents under:

• Educational documents (school, college or degree/diploma certificates)
• Non-educational documents (birth certificate, marriage certificate, CENOMAR, death certificate etc.)
• Commercial documents (Commerce based certificates)