What the treaty gives you, and the 2017 line
The India-Mauritius treaty, in Article 13, used to tax gains on Indian shares only in Mauritius, and Mauritius has no capital gains tax, so those gains went untaxed on both sides. That was the classic Mauritius route.
The 2016 protocol drew a line at 1 April 2017. Shares acquired on or after that date can now be taxed by India. But shares you acquired before 1 April 2017 are grandfathered: they stay taxable only in Mauritius, whenever you sell them. So your pre-2017 holding starts from a protected position. The question Tiger Global raised is whether that protection can still be taken away.
What Tiger Global actually decided, and who it was about
The Supreme Court's January 2026 ruling in Tiger Global was not about an individual investor. It was about a chain of Mauritius companies, owned by Cayman funds pooling money from many investors, managed from the United States, that sold shares of a Singapore company, Flipkart's holding company, to Walmart. The tax authorities found the Mauritius entities were a conduit controlled from the United States, claiming exemption in both countries, and the Supreme Court upheld that outcome on the substance of the arrangement rather than on the residency certificate.
On those facts the court held two things that matter to you. A tax residency certificate is strong evidence but not the final word, and the tax office can look behind it at where control really sits. And the anti-avoidance rules can apply to an arrangement carried out for a tax benefit after 1 April 2017, even where the underlying investment was older, especially where the sale is an indirect transfer of a foreign company's shares rather than a direct holding of Indian shares.
Why a genuine individual is still protected
The reassuring part is that a real individual is the opposite of Tiger Global on every point the court relied on. You hold Indian shares directly, not through a foreign company. You genuinely live in Mauritius, so your residence is real, not a paper arrangement controlled from somewhere else. And you are a single investor, not a pooled conduit claiming double non-taxation.
A government rule made on 31 March 2026 puts this beyond much doubt for pre-2017 holdings: it confirmed that the anti-avoidance rules do not apply to income from investments made before 1 April 2017. So a genuine Mauritius-resident individual selling pre-2017 Indian shares held directly remains grandfathered, and the gain stays taxable only in Mauritius.
Where the real risk now sits
Tiger Global did change the climate, and it is worth being honest about where you could be exposed. A Mauritius residency held mainly on paper, to save Indian tax rather than because you live there, is now genuinely vulnerable, because the tax office can test whether your residence is real. Holding your Indian assets through a foreign company, rather than directly, loses the treaty's protection at the threshold, as it did for Tiger Global. And a structure built around a tax benefit can still be challenged even if the shares themselves are old.
A mutual fund is treated more kindly than a share here. Because Indian mutual fund units are issued by a trust and are not shares, a tribunal has held that a Mauritius resident's gains on Indian fund units fall under the treaty's residual clause and are taxable only in Mauritius, whether the units are pre or post 2017. That is a favourable tribunal position rather than settled law, and the same substance test applies, so a genuine investor is fine and a conduit is not.