What protects a Qatari investor in India: the 1999 treaty's ten-year tail, no new treaty yet, and the tax rules

No India-Qatar investment treaty is in force on the register of the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), which records the 1999 treaty as terminated on 23 March 2017 and lists no later Qatar entry. On its words, the 1999 text stays effective for ten years after termination for investments made before that date, that is until 23 March 2027, with fair and equitable treatment, expropriation and arbitration clauses. A new bilateral investment treaty was still under negotiation on 18 February 2025, when the leaders agreed to expedite it. Tax rules sit apart: a revised double taxation agreement was signed on that visit, and Schedule V of the Income-tax Act, 2025 can exempt the income of a notified sovereign wealth fund.

Which treaty exists, and what does the register say?

The Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) keeps a register of India's bilateral investment treaties, with a date of agreement, a date of enforcement and a date of termination for each entry. Qatar appears once, on page seven of ten: agreement 7 April 1999, enforcement 15 December 1999, termination 23 March 2017. No other row names Qatar, and none of the ten pages shows a later India-Qatar entry.

The only official statement that points forward is paragraph 4 of the India-Qatar Joint Statement of 18 February 2025, issued at the end of the State Visit of the Amir of Qatar on 17 and 18 February 2025. The two sides "expressed happiness at the signing of the revised Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement and also agreed to expedite negotiations on the India-Qatar Bilateral Investment Treaty." That is a commitment to negotiate. The list of documents signed during the visit contains the revised tax agreement and a strategic partnership agreement; no investment treaty is in it. Unlike a United Arab Emirates investor, who has a 2024 treaty in force, a Qatari investor has no treaty in force.

Does the 1999 treaty still do anything?

On its words, yes, for a defined class of investments and a limited time. Article 14(1) says the treaty stays in force for ten years and is then automatically extended unless a Contracting Party gives written notice of termination, when it "shall stand terminated one year from the date on receipt of such written notice". Article 14(2) then says that, despite termination, the agreement "shall continue to be effective for a further period of ten years from the date of its termination in respect of investments made or acquired before the date of termination".

The register's termination date is 23 March 2017. Ten years from that date is 23 March 2027, which is under five months after 28 October 2026. The register does not publish the notice date.

An investment made or acquired before 23 March 2017 is within the tail; one made on or after that date is not.

What does the 1999 text protect?

Article 1 defines an investor of Qatar as a Qatari national, or a "Government and Governmental agencies, corporations, companies, firms or business associations" constituted under Qatari law with headquarters in Qatar. On those words a state-owned body is an investor, which is the point of interest for a sovereign wealth fund.

Investment is "every kind of asset established or acquired" in accordance with the host State's laws, and includes property, shares and debentures, contractual rights to money, intellectual property rights and business concessions, including concessions to extract oil and other natural resources. The list is open. Returns reinvested have the same protection.

Treatment is wide. Article 3(2) says investments and returns "shall at all times be accorded fair and equitable treatment", with no qualifying list of what that means. Article 4 gives national treatment and most-favoured-nation treatment, but Article 4(3) lets a party withhold a third State's benefits that come from a customs union, free trade area or regional economic organisation, and "matters relating wholly or mainly to taxation". That tax carve-out sits against most-favoured-nation claims; the fair and equitable treatment and expropriation clauses carry no tax exclusion.

Article 5 bars direct or indirect expropriation, nationalisation or any procedure of similar effect unless it is for public interest, without discrimination, and against fair and equitable compensation. Compensation is "the real market value" at the time of expropriation, paid without unreasonable delay, freely transferable, with interest at a fair rate that "shall not be less than the prevailing six month LIBOR-rate" (London Interbank Offered Rate) from the date of expropriation to payment. Article 6 guarantees free transfer of capital, returns, loan repayments, sale proceeds and compensation, at the market rate on the date of transfer.

Article 2 covers investments "accepted as such in accordance with its laws and regulations", and Article 11(2) leaves the host State free to act for its essential security interests, public order or morality, or in extreme emergency, on a non-discriminatory basis.

How are disputes resolved?

Article 8 covers a dispute "arising directly from an investment" between a Contracting Party and an investor of the other. The parties first try to settle it amicably. If that fails within six months of a written request for settlement, either party to the dispute may submit it to the competent court of the host State if the investor agrees, to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) if its Convention applies to both Contracting Parties, or to an ad hoc arbitral tribunal. A party that picks one route cannot pick the other two. India is not a party to the ICSID Convention, so on those words the ICSID route is not open; an ICSID-administered case would have to run under the Additional Facility Rules, and only where the treaty allows it.

The ad hoc tribunal has three members, with a chairman who is a citizen of a third country. Decisions are by majority, final, and enforced under the domestic law of the Contracting Party to the dispute. The venue is The Hague unless the parties agree otherwise, and the rules are the 1976 Arbitration Rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).

The text has no local remedies requirement, no limitation period, no waiver clause and no list of excluded measures. Those gaps matter only while the tail runs.

How do the dates work for an investor?

An illustration. The investors, investments and dates below are hypothetical, and the rows apply only the words of Articles 8 and 14(2) to them.

Qatari state-owned fund, shares in an Indian company
  Shares bought 10 June 2016                  made before 23 March 2017:
                                              within the tail
  Further shares bought 10 June 2017          made after 23 March 2017:
                                              outside the tail
  Tail ends on the words of Article 14(2)     23 March 2027

A dispute about the 2016 shares
  Written request for amicable settlement     1 December 2026
  Six months run to                           1 June 2027
  Earliest reference under Article 8(2)       1 June 2027, after the tail

The last line is the live question. Article 14(2) keeps the agreement "effective" for ten years "in respect of investments"; Article 8 allows a reference only after six months. A claimant who sends the request on 1 December 2026 reaches the reference stage after 23 March 2027. The text does not say whether the ten years protect the investment or the claim.

What does the tax position add?

Tax sits outside the investment treaty. The revised Agreement for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with respect to Taxes on Income was among the documents signed during the February 2025 visit. Its text was not available from an official source on 28 October 2026, so its rates are not stated here.

Domestic law adds a second layer. Serial number 7 of Schedule V of the Income-tax Act, 2025 can exempt certain income of a sovereign wealth fund, but only once the Central Government notifies the fund, and the Act names a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, not Qatar or the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA). The conditions are set out in our note on Canadian pension funds and the infrastructure exemption.

What remains unsettled?

Whether the ten years in Article 14(2) protect a claim started after 23 March 2027 on an earlier investment, as above.

What the termination date records. The register gives 23 March 2017 but not the notice behind it, and a different date of effect would move the tail.

When, and in what form, the India-Qatar bilateral investment treaty is concluded. The only official words are an agreement to expedite negotiations. What a new text would keep of the 1999 text cannot be known until it is published.

Whether the Qatar Investment Authority is, or will be, a specified person. A fund needs a Central Government notification, and this note has not seen one for a Qatari fund.