What notarisation adds, and what it does not
A notary public witnesses the translator or a company representative signing the declaration of accuracy, confirms their identity, and records the event in an official register, applying their own seal and signature.
Read that again, because the distinction is the whole point: the notary is attesting to who signed the document, not to whether the translation is correct. A notary in India is not required to read the source language, and in most cases cannot. They are verifying an identity and a signature, which is a real and useful function, but it is not a quality check.
This matters because people pay for notarisation believing it makes a translation more accurate or more official in some general sense. It does not. If the translation is wrong, notarising it produces a notarised wrong translation.
When you genuinely need it
Three situations account for nearly all legitimate requests:
The receiving authority asked for it in writing. Some courts, some government departments and some foreign missions specifically require notarisation. If they asked, get it — there is no arguing with their form.
The document is going to court. Indian courts generally expect notarised translations of foreign-language documents submitted as evidence.
It is a step towards apostille. This is the most common reason and the most poorly explained one. A privately issued document — which includes a translation — generally cannot be apostilled directly. It has to be notarised first, then authenticated by the relevant state authority, before the Ministry of External Affairs will apostille it. Notarisation here is not the destination; it is the first step of a longer chain.
When you are probably being oversold
If a university has asked for a “certified translation” and someone is quoting you for notarisation, ask why. For a great many applications the certified translation alone is what was requested, and notarisation adds cost and days without adding acceptance.
We will tell you when we think this is the case. It means a smaller invoice, but an unnecessary notarisation that delays your application by a week is not a service.
Practical consequences
Notarisation exists on paper. The notary signs a physical document and records it in a physical register, which has two effects worth planning around.
First, you need hard copies, and they need to travel to you. A scanned notarised document is accepted by some authorities and refused by others, and you should not assume.
Second, it takes time — not a great deal, but it is a dependency on a third party’s availability rather than something we control. Build a few days into your schedule, and tell us your deadline at the start so we can say honestly whether it is achievable.