Notary certificate for passport a must

VIJAYAWADA: The passport office made notarial certificate mandatory for all affidavits from April 18.The passport officials explained that all affidavits submitted from April 18 need to be accompanied by a notarial certificate, in a press release on Thursday.

The passport applicants have been submitting their applications without following guidelines, for that the applications have been kept pending by the issuing authorities. The passport issuing authorities are suggesting that at the time of applying for the passport in some cases affidavits duly notarised need to be submitted by the applicant.

The affidavits are incomplete many a times, like the deponents’ signature is missing, corrections made in the notary are not attested by the Notary and others, observed Mr Syed Sabeer Ali, deputy passport officer at Vijayawada Passport Sevakendra.

The officer also observed that they found that the affidavits are notarised without the deponent signing the affidavits in front of the notaries. To regularise this, it has been decided that all affidavits submitted from April 18 of this year need to be accompanied by a notarial certificate indicating the details of the entries made in the notarial register book which is maintained by the notary public, he explained.

He also directed that the notaries who are signing the affidavits for passport applicants have to ensure that the affidavits are complete in all respects and the deponent present himself before the notary and then affix their signature in ink.