Scope is everything, and paraphrase destroys it
A power of attorney grants specified authority to a named person. Everything of consequence lies in the precise extent of what is granted — which acts, over which assets, subject to which limits, for how long.
This is why a power of attorney is translated clause by clause rather than summarised. A bank, registrar or court reading it needs to determine whether a specific proposed act falls inside the authority conferred. That determination is made on the exact wording, and a translation that renders “may sell, mortgage, lease or otherwise deal with” as “may manage” has changed the document’s legal effect.
We translate the operative language literally, preserve the clause structure and numbering, and keep any enumerated list in the same order. Where an Indian legal term has no clean equivalent, we render it and add a translator’s note rather than substituting an approximate foreign concept that may carry different consequences.
Special versus general
Indian practice distinguishes a general power of attorney, conferring broad authority, from a special power limited to defined acts. Institutions abroad often insist on a special power for a specific transaction, and may decline to act on a general one.
The translation must make the character of the instrument obvious, because it determines whether the receiving institution will accept it at all. If you are having a power drafted for use abroad, ask the receiving institution what they require before execution — it is far cheaper to draft correctly than to execute, authenticate, translate and then discover the scope is wrong.
Stamp paper, registration and witnesses
The instrument’s validity rests on its execution formalities: stamp paper of the correct value, the serial number, the date, the notarisation or registration, witness signatures and identification.
Property-related powers are frequently registered with the sub-registrar, which generates registration particulars — a document number, volume, page, date of registration. These are what allow an Indian authority to verify the instrument later, and they are translated in full.
Witness names and identification details are translated too. They are regularly treated as incidental and cropped out of photographs; they are not incidental.
Authentication for use abroad
A power of attorney executed in India for use abroad generally needs authentication, and as a privately executed document it follows the longer route: notarisation, state-level authentication, then apostille for Hague Convention countries or consular attestation for others.
Where a power is executed abroad for use in India, the chain runs the other way and typically involves the Indian mission in that country, often with a requirement that it be stamped in India within a defined period after arrival.
Establish the sequence before executing anything. Powers of attorney are the document where we most often see people complete the whole process in the wrong order and have to start again — and unlike a certificate, a power of attorney has to be re-executed by the principal, who may be on another continent.