Apostille Certificate Attestation

What is an Apostille?

An Apostille is a certificate issued by a designated authority in a country where the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement for Legalization of Foreign Public Documents, Apostille Convention, is in force. Apostilles authenticate the seals and signatures of officials on public documents such as birth certificates, notarials, court orders, or any other document issued by a public authority, so that they can be recognized in foreign countries that are parties to the Convention. Normally, there are multiple designated Competent Authorities to issue Apostilles, the authority to issue an Apostille for a particular document depends on the origin of the document in question. State documents such as notarizations or vital records are authenticated by designated state competent authorities, usually the Ministry of External Affairs.The Hague Conference on Private International Law, the international organization that created the Apostille Convention, maintains an Apostille Section on its website with helpful information such as a user brochure The ABCs of Apostilles, and links to competent authorities for every country, including the United States, where the Convention is in force.

Apostille Attestation without HRD

Apostille attestation in India is done by the Ministry of external Affairs Govt of India. However the ministry does not do the attestations directly but it is outsourced to some selective agencies located in various parts of India.Besides these outsourced agencies the MEA does have some offices where they take applications directly from individuals. However all these centers insist for HRD attestations prior to Apostille attestations without any exception Now to get the HRD done one has to undertake a tedious process of doing the University verification first followed by Home department attestation and only then you can submit for HRD. Again the days for submission and collection are fixed i.e. you can submit documents for 2 days in a week and collect the same only 2 days a week. Depending on states the days may differ however the process is more or less tedious and time taking. So doing HRD may be one month's job and for someone who is relocating for job /education to other country one month is too precious to loose in documentation process.Therefore if one has to do hassle free Apostille attestation without much trouble it's advisable to find a good agency which is approved by Government and has good market reputation, then hand over the job to them