Enforcement of an Emirati Judgment in India: The Debtor Has Left, What Should I Do?

If a UAE court has ruled in your favour and the debtor has since left for India, or keeps his money and property there, the direct answer is: yes, you can enforce a UAE judgment in India directly, without starting the case again from scratch before the Indian courts. Since January 2020 the UAE has been a "reciprocating territory" in the eyes of Indian law, so a UAE judgment is filed with the competent District Court in India and executed as if that court had passed it.

But the route has specific conditions: the judgment must be final and enforceable, must order the payment of a sum of money, must come from one of the UAE courts named in the Indian notification, and must be accompanied by a certificate of the extent to which it has already been satisfied, plus a certified translation. The debtor, in turn, can raise only a limited set of defences, and re-arguing the merits is not one of them. This guide explains enforcement of judgments between the UAE and India in both directions, and what you need from a judgment-enforcement lawyer in Dubai before you begin.

What changed in January 2020 for enforcing a UAE judgment in India?

On 25 October 1999 the UAE and India signed in New Delhi an Agreement on Juridical and Judicial Cooperation in Civil and Commercial Matters, covering service of summons, taking of evidence, and the recognition and execution of decrees, settlements and arbitral awards. The UAE ratified it by federal decree in 2000. Yet in the direction from the UAE to India the Agreement stayed practically dormant for some twenty years, because Indian law allows direct execution only of judgments from countries that the Indian Government declares a "reciprocating territory" by notification in the Official Gazette.

That notification was issued by the Indian Ministry of Law and Justice on 17 January 2020 and published the following day. Before it, a UAE creditor had to file a fresh civil suit in India in which the UAE judgment served merely as evidence, with all the years and costs that implies. After it, enforcing a UAE judgment in India became an execution application rather than a lawsuit, which is exactly what makes filing a lawsuit against a person outside the UAE worthwhile when the assets are in India.

Which UAE judgments can be enforced directly in India?

Direct execution does not extend to everything a UAE court issues. Under the Indian Code of Civil Procedure, the direct route is confined to decrees ordering the payment of a sum of money, excluding taxes, charges, fines and penalties, and excluding arbitral awards, which follow their own route. Under the Agreement itself, interim and provisional measures are also outside its scope.

• Final money judgments: debt, damages, commercial and banking claims, the widest and most easily enforced category.

• Civil rulings issued by criminal courts: expressly covered by the Agreement, provided what is being enforced is the civil element (compensation), not the penalty.

• Arbitral awards: enforced in India under the New York Convention, to which both the UAE and India are parties, and not through the direct-notification route. See our guide to arbitration procedures in the UAE.

• What falls outside the route: interim orders such as precautionary attachment, fines, and judgments that are not yet final or are still open to appeal.

The UAE courts recognised in the Indian notification

The Indian notification names the UAE courts treated as "superior courts" whose decrees are executed directly: the Federal Supreme Court; the Federal Courts of First Instance and Appeal in the Emirates of Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain and Fujairah; the local courts of the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department, Dubai Courts and the Ras Al Khaimah Judicial Department; and the courts of Abu Dhabi Global Market and the Dubai International Financial Centre.

The inclusion of the DIFC and ADGM courts has a real practical effect: their judgments are in English and follow procedures familiar to Indian courts, which spares the creditor translation and shortens any debate over jurisdiction. When drafting contracts with Indian counterparties it is therefore worth considering a jurisdiction clause in favour of these courts where the nature of the deal allows. See the Judicial Authority for resolving conflicts of jurisdiction in Dubai to understand the limits of the DIFC courts' jurisdiction.

Steps to enforce a UAE judgment in India

The procedure runs in four stages, starting in the UAE and ending before a District Court in India. Most applications that fail do so in the first two stages, not before the Indian judge.

What defences does the debtor have in India?

The Agreement and Indian law together set out the cases in which recognition or execution of the decree may be refused. The list is exhaustive, and "the judgment was wrong on the merits" is not on it. The debtor may argue that the decree:

• is not conclusive or not executable in the country where it was passed;

• was pronounced by a court without jurisdiction under the rules of jurisdiction agreed in the Agreement, for example where the debtor had no domicile, branch or business in the UAE, the contract was not to be performed there, and he had not submitted to its courts;

• was not given on the merits, or appears on its face to be founded on an incorrect view of international law;

• was obtained in proceedings opposed to natural justice, or was obtained by fraud;

• sustains a claim founded on a breach of a law in force, or is contrary to public order in India, or contravenes the rules on representing persons lacking capacity;

• was passed in absentia without the defendant being duly summoned under the rules applicable in his country;

• concerns a dispute already pending before an Indian court between the same parties, filed before the UAE case.

Protecting the judgment against these defences therefore begins in the UAE: proving service, documenting the basis of the UAE court's jurisdiction in the contract or the place of performance, and keeping the evidentiary record clean. See proving a debt without written evidence in the UAE for what the courts accept as evidence.

And in the opposite direction: enforcing an Indian judgment in the UAE

If you hold a judgment from an Indian court and want to enforce it against the debtor's assets in Dubai or any other emirate, the route is different. Under the UAE Civil Procedure Law, the application is submitted directly to the execution judge by way of a petition and decided by order within days, with no separate lawsuit. The judge checks that the Indian court had jurisdiction and that the UAE courts do not have exclusive jurisdiction over the dispute, that the parties were served and properly represented, that the judgment is final, and that it conflicts neither with an earlier UAE judgment nor with public order.

Reciprocity used to be the most contested condition in this direction, but since the Indian notification it is no longer in doubt: each country enforces the other's judgments under a treaty in force and an official notification. The full details of this route are in our article on enforcement of foreign judgments in the UAE, and if you are the debtor see suspension of execution and annulment of the executive document.

When is litigating before the DIFC Courts the smarter choice?

When your counterparty is Indian or his assets are in India, the choice of court at the drafting stage determines how easy enforcement will be years later. The DIFC and ADGM courts are named in the Indian notification, their judgments are in English, and their procedures are familiar to lawyers and judges in India. This does not displace the onshore courts, which remain the default for most disputes, but it makes the jurisdiction clause a commercial decision worth studying with a lawyer before signing, not after the dispute arises. See international lawyers in Dubai and debt collection in the UAE.

Practical tips before enforcing a UAE judgment in India

Legal references

• Federal Decree-Law No. 42 of 2022 promulgating the Civil Procedure Law.

• Agreement on Juridical and Judicial Cooperation in Civil and Commercial Matters between the United Arab Emirates and the Republic of India, signed in New Delhi on 25 October 1999, and the Federal Decree of 2000 ratifying it.

• The Indian Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.

• Notification G.S.R. 38(E) of the Indian Ministry of Law and Justice dated 17 January 2020 declaring the United Arab Emirates a reciprocating territory.

• Federal Law No. 6 of 2018 on Arbitration, and the New York Convention of 1958 on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards.

Frequently asked questions on enforcing judgments between the UAE and India