Poking the Tiger: The Supreme Court Rewrites India’s Treaty Entitlement Rules

The author examines the Supreme Court of India's 2026 decision in Tiger Global and its implications for the interaction between treaty entitlements and India's General Anti-Avoidance Rule. The judgment, it is argued, marks a decisive doctrinal shift from formal treaty compliance to a substance-over-form approach, reframing the 2016 Protocol's grandfathering clause from an inviolable guarantee to a rebuttable presumption subject to anti-avoidance scrutiny. By embedding GAAR principles into treaty interpretation, the Court subordinates legitimate expectations to domestic anti-abuse frameworks, ultimately conditioning treaty benefits on demonstrable commercial substance over mere formal compliance.