e-Sanad: Online Apostille and Attestation by MEA

Before you pay an agent to get your degree, marksheet or birth certificate apostilled, settle one question: is your document already sitting in a digital depository? That single fact decides your entire route. The rule on the government portal is blunt. The document should be available in the digital repository for getting attestation or apostille through e-Sanad. If it is, the whole thing happens online and you never hand your original paper to anyone. If it is not, e-Sanad cannot help you yet, and your document continues to be attested or apostilled in the same manner as before.

So do not start by hunting for an agent. Find your own situation in the left column below and you will know, in about two minutes, whether you can skip the agent entirely.

e-Sanad is a project aimed at online submission and verification of documents, with the ultimate object of extending a contactless, cashless, faceless and paperless document attestation service, for both apostille and normal attestation, to applicants in India. It is designed and developed by NIC. The portal is at https://esanad.nic.in

The project was launched on 24 May 2017 with the CBSE documents depository, covering documents from the year 2014 onwards. Since then it has been adopted by various Document Issuing Authorities, or DIAs, including the National Academic Depository.

This is not only for degrees. Any type of document, whether personal, educational or commercial, can be authenticated or apostilled using e-Sanad. The limiting factor is never the type of paper, only whether a digital depository for that document exists.

An apostille matters because India has been a member of the Hague Convention of October 5 1961 since 2005. That Convention abolished the requirement of legalisation of foreign public documents. An apostille issued under it is acceptable in 105 member-countries of the Convention, which is why a foreign university, immigration office or employer asks for one instead of a chain of embassy stamps.

The flow is short, and most of it happens without you.

1. You apply online through the e-Sanad portal and identify the authority that issued your document.
2. That Document Issuing Authority verifies the document against its own records. The verification runs on the depository copy, not on a sheet you post to someone.
3. After verification of documents by the DIAs, the digital copy of the documents is attested or apostilled by the Ministry of External Affairs.
4. That copy is then despatched to the respective applicant by speed post.

No counter visit, no surrendering your original certificate to a courier, no middleman holding your degree.

Here is exactly what the Ministry publishes.

• Apostille: a fee of Rs 50 is payable to MEA for apostille of a document.
• Normal attestation: done free of cost.

That is the MEA charge, and it is the only fee figure the Ministry states plainly.

On the physical route there is a second layer of cost. The Ministry of External Affairs is not accepting documents directly from the applicant or individual. All documents for attestation or apostille by MEA are to be submitted to and collected from the four designated outsourced agencies. Those agencies charge a separate collection and delivery fee on top of the MEA fee. Check the current rate on the MEA apostille page before you budget, and do not take an agent's word for it.

This is the honest coverage picture.

On the government counter side, e-Sanad is currently operational in five passport offices and in the Attestation Section, CPV Division, Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi.

Three States and UTs are rolled out, three more are in discussion, everything else is a later phase. If an agent tells you e-Sanad already covers your state and it is not named above, they are selling you something.

If your document has no digital depository behind it, nothing has changed for you. It continues to be attested or apostilled in the same manner as before, through the designated outsourced agencies, because MEA does not take documents directly from members of the public.

One thing worth knowing about that older system: with effect from 13 October 2016, attestation and apostille services have been decentralised to the RPOs in Bangalore, Chandigarh, Goa, Mumbai and Trivandrum. So it is not a single Delhi bottleneck any more, though it is still costlier than doing it online.

Kashvi Pathak needs her CBSE certificate apostilled for an admission abroad. It falls in the 2014-onwards window, so a depository copy already exists. She applies through e-Sanad, CBSE verifies it against its own records, MEA apostilles the digital copy, and the copy reaches her by speed post. She pays the Rs 50 MEA apostille fee and no agency collection charge. Had she walked her paper certificate into an agency office instead, it would not even have been accepted.

Dr. Shrawan Kumar Pathak needs a marriage certificate apostilled, issued in a state that is not on e-Sanad yet. There is no depository copy, so the portal is not available to him and his document goes the old physical route, with the agency collection and delivery charge on top of the MEA fee. Same country, same Ministry, completely different process, and the only variable is the depository.

The e-Sanad portal also carries an e-Register of Apostilles. It lets the person receiving your document check the apostille against the issuing authority's register, rather than taking a stamp on trust. If a foreign office asks how it can confirm your apostille, point them there.

This is where the RTI Act 2005 becomes a real tool. The Ministry of External Affairs is an Indian public authority, and so are the Document Issuing Authorities at the start of the e-Sanad chain, such as CBSE and state boards. Your apostille application is a domestic file held by domestic public authorities, and you can ask what is happening to it.

The chain has two links, and a stalled file is usually stuck at one of them. Either the DIA has not verified your document, or MEA has not despatched the apostilled copy. An RTI aimed at the right link gets you an answer instead of a call-centre shrug.

File your RTI with the concerned Document Issuing Authority, or with the CPV Division of MEA, and ask for:

• the date on which your application or verification request was received
• the date on which the document was verified by the Document Issuing Authority, or the reason it has not been
• the current status of the file and the name and designation of the officer holding it
• the despatch details, including the speed post particulars, if the copy has been sent
• copies of the noting and correspondence on your application

Use the AI RTI Drafter to turn those questions into a properly worded application. If the Public Information Officer does not reply within the time limit set by the Act, work out your exact dates with the Timeline Tracker, then run the reply you did get through the PIO Reply Checker to see whether it is a real answer or a brush-off. If it is a brush-off, escalate with the First Appeal Builder.

If your application is already stuck rather than unstarted, our companion guide on a delayed MEA apostille or HRD attestation walks through the chase in detail. For framing questions a public authority cannot dodge, The RTI Playbook is the long-form version.

No. The launch depository covers CBSE documents from the year 2014 onwards. An older certificate has no depository copy, so it fails the basic condition that the document should be available in the digital repository. It goes the old physical route instead.

Not on e-Sanad. The service is contactless and paperless by design. The Document Issuing Authority verifies against its own records, MEA apostilles the digital copy, and that copy is despatched to you by speed post. For CBSE documents from 2014 onwards, the physical copy would not be accepted anyway.

A fee of Rs 50 is payable to MEA for apostille of a document, and normal attestation is done free of cost. On the physical route, the four designated outsourced agencies charge a separate collection and delivery fee on top, so check the current rate on the MEA apostille page.

Use the old route. The project has been successfully rolled out in Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, discussions are currently underway with Telangana, Sikkim and Meghalaya for onboarding, and other States and UTs will be included in subsequent phases. Until then, documents without a digital depository continue to be attested or apostilled in the same manner as before.

An apostille is the certification used between members of the Hague Convention of October 5 1961, which India joined in 2005, and it is acceptable in 105 member-countries of the Convention. Normal attestation is the other form of authentication. MEA does it free of cost, while apostille carries the Rs 50 fee.

Any type of document, whether personal, educational or commercial, can be authenticated or apostilled using e-Sanad. The type of document is not the constraint. The depository is.

Yes. MEA and the Document Issuing Authorities are Indian public authorities under the RTI Act 2005. Ask the concerned DIA or the CPV Division of MEA for the date of receipt, the date of verification, the current status and the despatch details of your own application. This narrow, file-specific kind of question is what RTI answers best.

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• e-Sanad portal, National Informatics Centre and Ministry of External Affairs: https://esanad.nic.in
• Ministry of External Affairs, Apostille: https://www.mea.gov.in/apostille-menu.htm