Marriage certificate authentication for Tier 2 dependent vis

[gourab1987]

Hi,

I am currently working in UK with a tier 2 general visa. My wife wishes to apply for a tier 2 general dependent visa from Kolkata, India. Our marriage certificate says at the bottom: " if the document is needed for use in foreign countries for acceptance by the foreign missions situated in India authentication of the document by the ministry of external affairs is required".

Our certificate is laminated and it is extremely hard to delaminate. We were wondering if it is OK to authenticate a copy of the document from the ministry of external affairs?

Do we need authentication at all?

DO I NEED TO SUBMIT THE ORIGINAL MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE WITH AUTHENTICATION? This is a big problem because we need it to be delaminated and then stamped, or if that is not possible, arrange to make a duplicate!

Do we need the original to be apostilled? Again it is hard to delaminate the original document.

We want to mention, that our last application got rejected because we did not provide any document other than marriage certificate which we understand. But the visa officer accepted that I submitted a marriage certificate, and did not mention anything about authentication. Does this mean we do not need authentication?

Thanks a ton for any information! Any help will be highly appreciated! really confused here. We do not want this application to be rejected!

best,
Gourab