In what may come as a major relief to residents, the Delhi Government has decided to do away with the necessity of filing affidavits from a gazetted officer or a notary for a big chunk of Delhi Government-related work and instead would promote self-attestation of documents.
Following directions of the Prime Minister’s Office to abolish unnecessary requirement of affidavits while providing services to people, Chief Secretary Sanjay Kumar Srivastava has directed departments’ heads to dispense with unnecessary affidavits and undertakings and replace them with self-attestation. Under the self-attestation method, the original documents are required to be produced at the final stage.
The Chief Secretary directed all the Principal Secretaries, Secretaries, Heads of Departments to ascertain the possibility of abolition of requirement of affidavits while providing the services to the citizens and replace it with the self-attestation. He has asked them to submit the list of the services provided by the different departments for which the affidavits could be waived by August 31 this year.
The application forms for providing various services from the departments should be drafted in such a way so as to contain an undertaking or declaration that the facts stated are true and correct to the best of knowledge and belief, he said. “All local inventions type of affidavit has to be done away. At the same time, the service seekers may be informed that they may be penalised for concealment of facts, misrepresentation of facts and legal action can be taken under Section 199 and 200 of the IPC,” Srivastava said.
Srivastava said that by accepting self-attestation from the citizens, it will save them from buying stamp papers, locating a deed writer, saving them from payment to notary and executive magistrate, saving them from pecuniary loss on an average a person spends Rs 300-500 on affidavits and saving their 2-3 days from wasting.