A power of attorney (POA) is a legal document that allows one person (the principal) to grant another person (the agent or attorney-in-fact) the power to make decisions and act on their behalf in matters relating to money, property, or medical care.
Where a power of attorney is not signed on its first two pages, those pages remain unauthenticated by the principal and cannot, by themselves, be treated as a validly executed part of the power of attorney. The third page, being duly signed, is valid only if it independently confers the requisite authority upon the agent, without relying on the content of the unsigned pages.
Meaning of “Document”
In law, a “document,” as defined under the General Clauses Act, 1897, and the Indian Evidence Act, means any matter expressed, described, or recorded on any substance by means of letters, figures, marks, or electronic means, and which is intended to be used, or may be used, as evidence.
Meaning of “Sign” in Law
Under the General Clauses Act, 1897, “sign” means the act of applying a mark, name, symbol, or electronic representation to a record with the explicit intent to authenticate it and to signify agreement to its terms.
This means that the person must affix the mark or symbol with the conscious intention of adopting, or agreeing to, the contents of the document. The mark or process used must reliably link the specific individual to the document, establishing who authorized or created it. Further, the signed record must be preserved in a manner that keeps its content intact and admissible as evidence in the event of a dispute.
Signatures now take three distinct forms. The first is the traditional signature — a handwritten name or unique mark physically inscribed on paper. The second is the electronic signature — a digital symbol, typed name, or an act such as clicking an “I Agree” button, which legally stands in place of a handwritten signature. The third is the digital signature — a secured and encrypted subset of electronic signatures that provides additional proof of document integrity and signer identity.
Relevant Judicial Precedents
Indian courts have repeatedly examined the consequences of incomplete or inconsistent signing of multi-page instruments, and the principles emerging from this line of authority are directly relevant here.
In Dhani Ram (D) Thr. LRs. v. Shiv Singh [2023 INSC 876], the Supreme Court examined a Will whose attesting witnesses had not signed the first page, with their signatures appearing only at the end of the second page and on the reverse of the first page. The Supreme Court held that mere registration of a document does not cure defects in its execution, and reaffirmed that Section 68 of the Evidence Act requires at least one attesting witness to satisfy the statutory requirement of proof under Section 63 of the Succession Act before a document can be relied upon. Applying this reasoning by analogy, a power of attorney left unsigned on its earlier pages is vulnerable to exactly this kind of challenge — the absence of authentication on those pages becomes a ground to question whether the instrument, taken as a whole, reflects the principal’s genuine and complete intention, even though the last page bears a valid signature.
The evidentiary value for relying on a power of attorney was reinforced by the Supreme Court in Tharammel Peethambaran & Anr. v. T. Ushakrishnan & Anr [2026 INSC 134], while upholding a Kerala High Court judgment. The Court held that a mere photocopy of a power of attorney could not be relied upon to establish legal authority unless the statutory requirements for secondary evidence were strictly followed, and that courts cannot presume execution or authority under Section 33 of the Registration Act, 1908, or Section 85 of the Evidence Act, 1872, unless the foundational requirement of proving the document is first satisfied. This underscores that formal proof of execution — including proper signing — is not a mere technicality but a threshold requirement for a power of attorney to have any legal effect.
These judgments support the conclusion that partial signing of a multi-page instrument invites scrutiny of its genuineness and completeness as a whole and courts will not presume valid execution or authority in the absence of strict proof.
Conclusion
Accordingly, a three-page power of attorney signed only on the third page is not, as a whole, a validly executed power of attorney. However, if the third page alone confers proper and complete authority upon the agent, and that page independently satisfies the requirements of signing, authentication, and (where applicable) registration discussed above, it may be treated as valid to that limited extent.
