Caregivers of children with intellectual disability (ID) face sustained emotional and social demands, often reporting elevated stress, anxiety, and depression compared to caregivers of typically developing children. Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions has been proposed as a resource that may protect caregiver mental health. This paper is intended to systematically review empirical studies between 2000 and 2025 on the association between EI and mental health in caregivers of children with ID, summarizing outcomes (stress, anxiety, depression, well-being) linked to EI, comparing Indian and international literature and identifying gaps. Following PRISMA guidelines, we searched electronic databases (Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, PsycINFO, Google Scholar) using terms such as “emotional intelligence” and “caregivers of intellectual disability.” We included peer-reviewed quantitative or mixed-method studies involving parents or primary caregivers of children (≤18 years) with ID, assessing EI and mental health outcomes. Two reviewers screened studies, applied inclusion/exclusion criteria, and extracted data on samples, EI measures, and key results. Methodological quality (sample size, validated measures) was appraised qualitatively. No meta-analysis was done due to heterogeneity. We identified ~25 studies (15 international, 10 Indian); most were cross-sectional. Overall, higher caregiver EI was consistently linked to better mental health. In international samples, higher EI predicted lower parenting stress and burnout, and better psychological well-being. For example, Costa et al. (2017) reported that greater EI was associated with lower parental stress (r = −0.42) and higher well-being (r = 0.51). Studies found EI mediated stress–distress pathways and buffered the impact of caregiving strain. A meta-analysis found a moderate correlation (r≈0.34) between EI and health outcomes, with larger effects for mental health. Indian studies similarly show that caregivers with higher EI report less stress and better adjustment. Patra and Patro (2019) ^[8] found EI inversely correlated with perceived stress (r = −0.58), and Kaur et al. (2018) ^[3] found disability caregivers had lower EI than controls, with higher EI predicting better quality of life and lower burden. Several Indian studies demonstrated that EI mediates or moderates the stress–distress relationship (Verma & Tiwari, 2017) ^[11].