Exports and Imports Documentation Database

India

Export Process

Legal framework

National Legal framework:

India is party to the following international conventions:

Yes	UNESCO, Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, The Hague, 1954
Yes	UNESCO, Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, Paris, 1970
No	UNIDROIT Convention on stolen or illegally exported cultural objects, Rome, 1995
No	UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, Paris, 2001
No	Council of Europe Convention on Offences relating to Cultural Property, Nicosia, 2017

Protected Cultural Heritage

According to Indian law there are two categories of cultural goods that are protected:

Antiquities:
- any coin, sculpture, painting, epigraph or other work of art or craftsmanship;
- any article, object or thing detached from a building or cave;
- any article, object or thing illustrative of science, art, crafts, literature, religion, customs, morals or politics in bygone ages;
- any article, object or thing of historical interest;
- any article, object or thing declared by the Central Government, by notification in the Official Gazette, to be an antiquity for the purposes of this Act, which has been in existence for not less than one hundred years;
- and any manuscript, record or other document which is of scientific, historical, literary or aesthetic value and which has been in existence for not less than seventy-five years;
Art treasures: any human work of art, not being an antiquity, declared by the Central
Government by notification in the Official Gazette, to be an art treasure having regard to its artistic or aesthetic value:

Registration of Antiquities

The Central Government may, from time to time, by notification in the Official Gazette, specify those antiquities which shall be registered. Every person who owns, controls or is in possession of any antiquity specified in the notification issued in the Official Gazzette, shall register such antiquity before the registering officer.

Antiquities trade

Antiquities trade is subject to permission from the Archaeological Survey of India.

Export Process

General export ban

It is not be lawful for any person, other than the Central Government or any authority or agency authorized by the Central Government in this behalf, to export any antiquitiy or art treasure.

Whenever the Central Government or any authority intends to export any antiquity or art treasure such export shall be made only under the terms and conditions of a permit issued by such authority.

There is no export application form for individuals