Power of Attorney for India: Notarisation and Apostille

1. Key takeaways

The Indian Power of Attorney (PoA) must be jointly signed and sealed by the overseas manufacturer and the authorised Indian agent, and must be attested in India by a Magistrate of First Class, by the Indian embassy in the country of origin, or by an equivalent authority through an Apostille. The sequence cannot be reversed, and the signatory must be the same person named in the legal deed and the covering letter.

• The PoA is the instrument that allows the Indian agent to act in the manufacturer’s name before the CDSCO.
• Joint signature by both parties is a distinctively Indian requirement; most markets accept a unilateral manufacturer signature.
• Three attestation routes exist in parallel: Magistrate of First Class, Indian embassy attestation, and Apostille.
• The signatory named on the PoA must match the signatory of the legal deed and the covering letter exactly.
• The agent’s address on the PoA must match the wholesale licence or the MD-42 registration.

2. Legal basis

The attestation requirement and the surrounding consistency rules are set out in CDSCO guidance and in the Medical Devices Rules, 2017. The table below traces each matter to its source.

3. Expert insights

Insight one: the PoA is the ignition key of an Indian project. Without it, the agent cannot submit anything in your name. Yet it can only be signed after the agent has been selected — which creates a front-loaded loop of site selection and contracting. Companies that leave the PoA to the end of their document preparation discover that the remaining submission date depends on a commercial negotiation they have not yet started. Start the agent selection early, and treat the PoA as the first document of the project, not the last.

Insight two: joint signature is a distinctively Indian requirement. Most markets are satisfied with a unilateral authorisation signed by the manufacturer alone. India requires the two parties to sign and seal jointly, which means the PoA can only be finalised after the agent has been chosen, and both parties’ seals must be in place. This is an administrative sequencing constraint, not a legal subtlety: the printing, signing, sealing and shipping cycle between two countries is a schedule item in its own right.

Insight three: the Apostille is one of three optional routes, and China can use it. China acceded to the Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents (the Hague Convention) on 8 March 2023. Public documents issued in China and sent to India can be legalised by Apostille instead of consular legalisation — but Indian embassy attestation and attestation by a Magistrate of First Class within India remain parallel optional channels. Enterprises should choose according to their own document form, and should not assume that only one path exists.

Insight four: signatory consistency is the detail where marks are most easily lost. The draft IVD import guidance explicitly lists “the signatory of the legal deed differs from the signatory of the covering letter” among common non-conformities. A PoA sealed by A with a covering letter signed by B will be returned. The fix is organisational rather than legal: fix the signatory list once, at the moment the PoA is drafted, and reuse it everywhere.

4. Practical recommendations

GRZAN runs the PoA process as a fixed five-step chain: finalisation (jointly signed by both parties) → notarisation → Apostille or embassy attestation → translation (documents not in English must be accompanied by a certified English translation) → submission. At the same time, when the PoA is finalised we fix the “signatory list” in parallel and write the same signatory’s name into the legal deed, the covering letter, and the authorised agent undertaking — the signatory of all three documents must be the same person. This single decision, made once, removes an entire class of deficiency letters before the file ever reaches the reviewer, and it costs nothing beyond discipline.

• Finalise the agent appointment before drafting the PoA, since joint signature requires both parties.
• Choose the attestation route — Magistrate, embassy, or Apostille — based on the document form, not habit.
• Attach certified English translations to any document not issued in English.
• Fix one signatory and use that name across the legal deed, covering letter, and agent undertaking.
• Verify the agent’s address against the wholesale licence or MD-42 registration before submission.

5. Verification checklist

• □ The PoA has been jointly signed and sealed by the overseas manufacturer and the Indian agent
• □ Notarisation has been completed, followed by Apostille, embassy attestation, or Magistrate of First Class attestation
• □ Documents not in English carry a certified English translation
• □ The signatories of the legal deed, the covering letter, and the undertaking are identical
• □ The agent’s address matches the wholesale licence or MD-42 registration address

Regulatory information verified as of 27 October 2026.

How GRZAN can help. GRZAN provides medical device and IVD registration, quality system, authorised representative and local testing support across South Asia, including India. Our team prepares dossiers to CDSCO expectations, manages SUGAM submissions and deficiency responses, and supports post-market vigilance obligations. Business enquiries: info@grzanglobal.com