There are three basic types of attestations:

• State Attestation 
  State attestation is required before MEA attestation, where depending on the type of document, relevant state attestation is required. For example in case of educational documents, attestation from State Education Department is required. In case of personal documents, Home Department or General Administration Department of the concerned state should attest the document prior to attestation by the MEA


• MEA Attestation or Apostille 
  MEA attestation or apostille is done only after attestation by the relevant state authorities 
  
  
• Embassy Attestation 
  Embassy attestation is done after the MEA attestation/apostille

Apostille

 

An Apostille is a type of attestation in which documents are legalised in a particular format that is acceptable in all nations that belong to the Hague Convention. Essentially, Apostille is an international attestation that is acceptable in about 92 countries, and most of the western world recognises Apostille.

Apostille stamp is a square shaped computer generated sticker stamp, pasted on reverse of the document by the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. This is a unique computer generated stamp having a unique identification number, through which any member country of The Hague convention can check its authenticity online. Under normal circumstances, once the document is apostilled, it does not require to be attested further from the concerned embassy.

If a document is apostilled, it does not require to be attested.

For the list of countries that require documents to be apostilled, please refer to the following link:
http://www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act=states.listing