A document may be defined as ‘any piece of written, printed or electronic matter that provides information or evidence or that serves as an official record.’ As documents effectively provide an official record of an activity, identity or transaction, they are high value items and must be looked after with great care. However, on some occasions, it may so happen that a document gets misplaced or lost (which can be due to any reason). At that time, retrieval becomes of immediate urgency, and if retrieval is not possible, the reissuance of a duplicate of the lost document needs to be arranged for. Booking a lost document advertisement in a newspaper helps to make members of the general public aware that a certain document has been lost and that if found the owner should be contacted. This is a legal formality that needs to be fulfilled along with filing an FIR at the police station before duplicate documents can be issued. In other words, booking a lost documents ad in a newspaper is not only recommended but mandatory as well if a duplicate document is to be arranged for.