An Apostille or Authentication certifies the authenticity of the signature, seal, and position of the official who issued or certified a public document. This enables a public document from one country to be recognized as valid in another. While they have the same objective, there are differences between Apostilles and Authentications.
Procedure
All original documents requiring Attestation or Apostille should first be authenticated by the designated State authorities. The Ministry of External Affairs legalizes documents based on the signature of these designated authorities and does not take responsibility for the content. For personal documents, the Home/General Administration Department of the concerned State Government are the designated authorities. For educational documents, they should be authenticated by the State's Education Department. Commercial documents need pre-authentication from respective Chambers of Commerce. Due to outsourcing, no individual documents are accepted at the Ministry of External Affairs Counter in New Delhi since July 2012.
Normal Attestation is done for countries not part of the Hague Convention and where Apostille is not accepted.
Importance of Apostille Certificates
An Apostille is an authentication in a specific format acceptable in all countries that are part of the Hague Convention. It serves as global certification recognized in about 92 countries. The Ministry of External Affairs issues Apostille stickers as proof of document originality. The destination country requires Apostille to ensure the submitted documents are original and not fake.