All about notary public

In our country, licensed legal practioners do the work of attesting important documents through notary public. As per the rules of the Notaries Ordinance 1961 and Notaries Rules 1964, any lawyer with at least seven years of practice or anyone who has a working experience of minimum five years in the judicial sector or anyone who has been involved in legislative drafting at governmental level, is eligible to qualify as a notary. However, the government is empowered to employ anyone as a notary, as long as he meets the eligibility criteria.

Notary public comes into play for the attestation of documents like land registration documents, promisory notes, bills of exchange, bottomry and respondantia bonds, translated documents or Ids, buying of cars, issuing of divorce letters, character certificate, certificates of academic qualification, death certificates, birth certificates, application for citizenship in other countries and so on.

As per law, a notorian is required to have an office or workplace of his own. The government has set the fee for notary public related works; for attestation it is 10 taka and for stamped affidavit or contractual agreements it is 25 taka.

The rule is that you have to be present in person when the notorisation takes place, because in the absence of parties the risk of using fake documents is always there. Sometimes, personal seals or seal mohar of deceased are used, as a result parties may end up getting cheated. Since now you know better, make an informed decision before the next time you go for notorisation.

A notary may do all or any of the following acts by virtue of his office, namely:    

a) verify, authenticate, certify or attest the execution of any instrument;

b) present any promissory note, hundi or bill of exchange for acceptance of payment or demand better security;

 

c) note or protest the dishonour by non-acceptance or non-payment of any promissory note, hundi or bill of exchange or protest for better security or prepare acts of honour under the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, or serve notice of such note or protest;

 

d) note and draw up ship's protest, boat's protest or protest relating to demurrage and other commercial matters;

e) administer oath to, or take affidavit from any person;

f) prepare bottomry and respondantia bonds, charter parties and other mercantile documents;

g) prepare, attest or authenticate any instrument intended to take effect in any country or place outside Bangladesh in such form and language as may conform to the law of the place where such deed is intended to operate;

h) translate, and verify the translation of, any document from one language into another;

i) any other act which may be prescribed.