India's parliament has passed the Protection of Interests in Aircraft Objects Bill (2025), giving legal effect to the Cape Town Convention (2001). The Rajya Sabha, the parliament's upper house, passed the bill on April 1, 2025. Aviation minister Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu said that the bill would provide aircraft and engine lessors with added security and help reduce leasing costs.
"With this Bill, we aim to bring much-needed clarity," the minister told the upper chamber. "We hope it will provide a significant boost to the leasing industry, which is the need of the hour. The industry urgently requires this legislation.”
Naidu said India's domestic operators lease over 86% of their fleets. India signed the Cape Town Convention in 2008, which seeks to enforce uniform leasing rights and obligations on high-value movable property such as aircraft and engines. But until now the country's parliament has never given the convention local legal effect. In recent years, lessors have had significant issues attempting to retrieve aircraft and engines from carriers such as Go First and SpiceJet due to the absence of appropriate domestic legislation.
Among other things, the Protection of Interests in Aircraft Objects Bill gives full legal force to the Cape Town Convention and Protocol in India. It also allows creditors and lessors to repossess aircraft within two months of default or as per agreed terms. It requires India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation to maintain a registry of aircraft interests and dues and requires creditors and lessors to keep the DGCA informed of their local leasing activities.
"The whole reason we are bringing this Act is to give force of law to the Cape Town Convention and Protocol," said Naidu. "It is going to change the aviation landscape of the country."
