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How Can You Verify Documents in India For Foreign Trip?

How Can You Verify Documents in India For Foreign Trip?

If you are still worried about how to verify your police clearance or birth certificate, keep them all aside. You can easily do this and get off all hurdles that cap put your foreign trip or visit on halt.

Here, we are going to share everything about how to get your certificates apostilled in India. Let’s get started with a short brief about it.

Apostille

It is a prominent authority that can sign all papers that you need to get attested for immigration. You can take it as an attestation service. It is available in the Hague Convention countries only. Nobody knew about it before 1961, as it was not convened. When multiple times authentication of visa, passport, birth certificate, transcripts or other immigration papers looked difficult to carry on, the intellects from various countries had set its foundation on 25th October, 1980. As of now, 101 countries are its member.

The greatness of this service lies in its global acceptance. The legalisation conducted by one member country is accepted by another one, which is a part of this convention.

What kind of certificates does it legalise?

It mainly verifies personal documents, which can be a birth certificate, death certificate, marriage certificate, educational degree or mark sheet etc..

You cannot give duplicates of the aforesaid papers to go abroad for any reason. It is put on the originals. Besides, you should enclose the first and the last page copy of your passport.

One thing that you should always keep into account is that the Ministry of External Affairs has designated a few agencies with this task, which acts as an NRI consultant to get you through the typicality of this process. You should be extra careful from the fraudulent, which makes you a fool by taking money, but does not do anything. So, always ask about their experience and check their authenticity through their ratings on Google Maps & feedbacks, at least. Or, you can counter them with questions about how they do and who have considered them before.

Who does apostille certificate?

The designated signatory can be any of these Class I Gazetted Officers:

  • Director
  • Magistrate
  • Deputy Director
  • Section Officer
  • Commissioner
  • Chief Secretary
  • Joint Secretary
  • Assistant Secretary
  • Deputy Commissioner
  • Resident Commissioner
  • Sub Divisional Magistrate

Do you need to go for any other attestation before?

Yes, you may need to get your papers stamped from the state’s HRD. It would verify and check if all your papers for immigration are original. Thereafter, you should go to the notary public with the same request.

As I said, you ‘MAY’ need to go there, it is not compulsory. You can skip going there and catch up with an experienced NRI consultant to directly legalise your papers from the MEA.

About Fee

The verification from the state HRD or the MEA, both, is a paid service. However, both ministries charge minimally, which means you need to pay a nominal fee for it.

Timeline

Since it is about examining your documents if they are not fake, the competent authorities sluggishly do this. The reason might be that the ministries go deep with examination of their legality, which can be time taking.

All in all, the state government may take one or two working days. But, the MEA’s processing could be long. It may complete the whole processing in 3 to 4 weeks.

Update over Documents Needed for Passport in India

Update over Documents Needed for Passport in India

Many Passport Sewa Kendras (or PSK) process thousands of passport applications every year. India’s first Post Office Passport Sewa Kendra (POPSK) in Mysuru was set up in January, 2017. Since then, it has processed around 15,000 out of 17,899 passport applications successfully.  It’s the enormous sets of stats that just a PSK centre took care of.

Now, you can imagine how many passport applications do 77 PSK process!

It’s one of the significant documents that are mandatory to take along during immigration. It depicts the nationality with the date of the foreign visit. None of the foreign government allows any immigrant sans it. This is why the Indian immigration authority mandated these documents before November, 2017.

Documents required annexing the passport application:

  1. Date of Birth proof for those who are born after 26th January 1989.
  2. Registrar-issued a birth certificate in the Municipal Corporation (MC) of the respective district. If it’s not available, the passport authority accepts the birth proof issued by the head of the Para-Medical office where his/her birth took place.
  3. PAN Card
  4. School Certificate with the scripted date of birth issued by the recognized board or equivalent board
  5. Aadhar Card/ E-Aadhar
  6. Attested proof that states the applicant served in the government service/ Pay Pension Order-attested by the department head/in-charge of the ministry.
  7. Driving Licence
  8. Election Commission’s Election Photo Identity Card (EPIC)
  9. Photocopy of the public life insurance policy bond, if any.

What amendments have been made in the passport policy in 2017? 

It’s related to the documents required for the passport. These are the major changes that are declaimed:

  1. Guardian/Parent’s Name
  • Old Policy: As per old books of passport rules, it was compulsory to mention the name of both (mother and father) parents.

Sadhus/Sanyasi can state the name of their spiritual gurus in the place of guardian’s/parent’s name. This rule is not altered.

  • Update: Now, the government has relaxed the rule of stating both parents’ name. The applicant can mention either of the parent’s names.  
  1. Annexures
  • Old Policy: Earlier, around 15 annexes were mandatory. The applicants needed to fill, notarize and attest these certificates. Some even used to pay for the certificate attestation to the third party.
  • Update: Today, the government has restricted to 9 annexes. The rest of the annexes have been discarded or merged. Therefore, the applicants can enjoy the convenience of submitting limited annexes.
  1. Notarization: It’s an anti-fraud detection program. It scrutinizes the validity and authenticity of the documents as well as transactions.
  • Old Policy: The requisite documents for the processing of passport applicants needed to be notarized. With the request of doing so, the passport applicants had to queue up outside the notary officer or magistrate or sub-divisional magistrate. Sometimes, this process became lengthy and full of hassles.
  • Update: After the changes, the notarization is put to its end. This process is no longer in existence. It means that the applicants would no longer go through the hurly burly situation. The magistrate office will no longer be a crowded hub.
  1. Attestation  
  • Old Policy: Like notarization, the documents for the passport required to be attested by the District Magistrate (DM)/ Sub-Divisional District Magistrate (SDM). This is not the end point of the certificate attestation services. The applicant had to go for the counter-attestation by the Home Ministry. Once these Apostille services were done, the applicant finally went through police verification. A police officer verified the documents required for the tatkal passport or the simple one.
  • Update: The applicants can obtain a plain paper, state and attest. They no longer have to go to the DM or SDM office.
  1. Marriage Certificate
  • Old Policy: If the candidate is married, he/she had to present a marriage certificate as a proof of matrimony. And if the applicant is unfortunately a divorcee, he/she would have to submit the decree absolute.
  • Update: Now, appending such kind of proof is no longer required.

NRIs/OCIs to Link Bank A/c with Aadhaar No.-Yes or No?

NRIs/OCIs to Link Bank A/c with Aadhaar No.-Yes or No?

Do you have Aadhaar Card?

Have you linked it to your mobile phone number and bank account?

Screenshot_1

The ruling Indian government is strictly adhering to the amended rules. A lot is happening in the rule books of Aadhaar Act.  When this Act was composed, it was uniform for all. After demonetization, its linking to bank account emerged as the need of the hour. Transparency in transactions became immediacy.

What could the Indian government do then?

The stalwart composers of constitution introduced a law.

It directs: Link Bank Account with Aadhaar Number. 

This mandatory direction would cease the banking services of those residents who would fail to connect till the below mentioned deadline.

Deadline: 31st December, 2017 (being the last date to connect pan card with the aadhar number, it will a huge rush….Phew!)

Result: 1.171 million native Indians enrolled for Aadhaar Card till Aug, 2017. With these figures, the overall population of this card holder touched this count-1,144, 659,906. It’s around 87% of the total population.    

Screenshot_2

It’s really a praiseworthy figure!

The execution of this Act started stirring confusion all around. For NRIs, PIOs and OCIs community, the linking of this card became a threat.

What confusion?

Answer: Millions of NRIs don’t have their Aadhaar Card. They don’t have access to this facility. However, there are a few ones who have enrolled in this NRI service. But they did so when this card came into existence. This Act was different. There was no separate provision for the non-residents of this country. So, many of them got enrolled.

This Act was revised in 2016 which deleted pervasive confusion amongst the expats of Indian origin.

Many of them have enrolled even after execution of this edited Aadhaar Act. Although it was a hard nut yet they cracked it by hiding their foreign residential profile. They mentioned Indian residential address in the form. But it’s an unfair practice.

Here is the copy of the disclosure that the Aadhaar card enrollees sign. They submit it with their application form.

Screenshot_3

Having no Aadhaar Card can trouble OCIs or NRIs who:

  • Continue to operate their resident bank account in India for various reasons. Its cause can be deposited pension or any other one.
  • Hide their non-resident status of the resident banks.

Solution: Carrying on banking in the resident bank account is an illicit practice. The legislation terms it a clear violation of its rules. Therefore, the expats ought to discard such services to NRIs/OCIs. They ought to notify the banks about their foreign status.

What if the OCI or PIO has not linked his bank account with Aadhaar number?

PIOs and OCIs hail from non-resident of India group. Those who got their Aadhaar number concealing their NRI status, they must notify the bank. Doing so will keep them away from potential problems. Conducting such practice is apparently the breaching of Aadhaar Act, 2016.

If the confusion still persists, you should notify these facts:

Screenshot_4

However, the expats of this origin have banking rights. They can carry on transactions through NRE or NRO accounts. It would be legal.

It’s obvious that such community can’t have this number. The bank authority understands this fact. Therefore, it will not put any roadblocks between NRIs & banking services.

Basically, PAN card is a requisite document when you file for tax. The government has put a deadline for its holders to append it to the Aadhaar number. Its last date is 31st August 2017. If the one, somehow, fails to do so, he/she has to face problems in paying tax.

NRIs also pay tax. The revenue or income generated through Indian resources is taxable. Such expats should not be worried. They can’t apply for NRI services, like PAN Card and Aadhaar Card. Therefore, there seems no logic behind such worries. They can pay tax through Form-60 rather than using PAN card.

 

CA Certification for NRI Investment No More Compulsory

CA Certification for NRI Investment No More Compulsory

Taxation policy updates are the alarming bells set for the tax payers. Non-residents of India used to find them chill wind to encounter with. Over the years, scenario has been changed. Relaxation in stringent taxation policies is introduced. This is done to get migrants head around NRI investment in various sectors, such as real-estate, housing, finance and technology.

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