Want to change the name in the legal documents

There are two methods to change your name, one is through court decree and another is Affidavit/Public announcement.

1) The court decree is the method where you get a chance to change your name from roots, in all your records (Previous and current) using the court decree. For this you will need to hire an advocate or file your plaint as a party in person before magistrates or trial court, there is a risk of getting your plaint rejected.

2) Second and easy method is via swearing under oath in an Affidavit, then two newspaper publications and then Gazette Publication.

Here you need to get an Affidavit drafted, then you get the content published in two newspapers (English and regional) and after these two, with the guidelines mentioned in the Gazette India website, get your name change announcement published in E-Gazette. After all these, with the copies of each of these, you can apply in concerned authority/bank branches or your employer for a name change in the records you are currently holding.

The main difference is, with the help of second method, there are few restrictions in some authorities, also it is considered that your name is changed from that particular time onward.