Legalisation of documents refers to authenticating documents. Simply put, it ensures documents to be legally accepted across the world. It is a defined process wherein a stamp and signature are put at the backside of the paper by the county or state government and central government respectively. Typically, this process is known as attestation or apostille service.
Certainly, the document legalization is just another name of apostille of documents. Every document that immigration requires is to be legalized by the foreign affair authority of any country.

Why is it necessary?
Every country runs on a legislation, which has thousands of norms and guidelines. These are set to rightly and appropriately run a system of the country or the state/county. Since immigration is a serious matter involving the transitioning of people between countries, it needs to be regulated. This is how the need for legalization arose. Countries ensure a safe and peaceful life of their citizens. That’s why the Acts were written.

For example, the Section 90 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 clearly shows that the legalization is must for the person who has the ownership of important documents. The jury recognizes them and suggests getting them attested.

Apostille Documents is a Type of Legalisation
There are two methods of legalization in India, one is attestation and another is apostille of Indian documents.

The verification takes place at different levels, which are here to come across:

• Notary Attestation
  It represents the basic level of legalizing documents. Every country appoints local notary public who verifies the affidavit or any sworn statement to prove that it is authentic and the statement is trustworthy. Once done, he puts his stamp, proving the authenticity of the documents and reason of the affiant.
   
• Home Department Attestation
  The next type of verification is carried out by the home department of the county or the state department. It is concerned with the counter-attestation of the personal documents, like a death certificate, birth certificate, marriage certificate, etc.
   
• Human Right Department Attestation
  This is the third type, which involves the HRD department that signs and stamps educational certificates and documents. This type of verification is conducted when one is going foreign for a job or joining courses to study further or to marry with a foreigner.
   
• Sub-divisional Magistrate Attestation
  This type of attestation is concerned with the state or county or the union territory, where the Sub-Divisional Magistrate prepares affidavit or documents like CENOMAR, Marriage Certificate or Birth Certificate while verifying the details concerned with the affiant. All personal documents come under it.
   
• Chamber of Commerce Attestation
  As its name suggests, it is for entrepreneurs or corporate people who want to go abroad for a business event or any corporate meeting. The related documents are verified by the chamber of commerce here before authenticating it with the stamp and its official signature.
   
• MEA Attestation/Apostille
  This is the central level of legalization, which involves authentication by the Ministry of External Affairs. It signs and puts stamps of apostille documents at the backside to ensure that immigration of the person is confirmed. The outsourcing agents request here for apostille of documents.
  
  The apostille service is for those who are like to visit any of the member country of the Hague Convention. In case of migrating to the non-member countries, normal attestation is required. After apostille, there is no need for further attestation.
   
• Embassy Attestation
  Like other ones, it is also crucial. It represents the final destination of authenticating the immigration papers while verifying documents like visa, passport and many other docs come.

What is the Apostille attestation procedure?
A foreign visit requires verification of personal and commercial documents, depending on the reason. This authentication proves that the shown documents are credible. An official seal and signature of the signatory are put on the back side of the immigration papers.

The papers like CENOMAR, commercial agreement or an event ticket prove what the genuine reason of visiting abroad is. This procedure removes any doubt of misinterpretation or wrong motive behind the visit.

The aforesaid types of apostille/ attestation are required step by step. These steps would be complete and seamless if you have original supporting documents.

Here is the list of those docs & the department where you get the stamp from:

• Personal Documents-Legalised by the Home Department/General Administration Department
• Educational Certificates-Legalised by the state /union territory, then by the Ministry of external affairs (However, the MEA bears no responsibility for the content of the document)
• Commercial Purpose-Apostille by the Ministry of external affairs trailing the Chambers of Commerce Ministry attestation

Apositlle Needs Supporting Docs

• Original Certificate
• Passport Copy
• Visa Copy
• Passport Size Photograph-2
• Authorization Letter