The court upheld maritime law providing for vessel arrest to secure claims arising from misdelivery of cargo without original Bills of Lading, establishing the defendants' liability for financial losses incurred.

ORDER :

MAUNA M. BHATT, J.

1. Heard learned Advocate Mr. Sukumar Tirthani for the Plaintiff.

2. Learned Advocate Mr. Sukumar Tirthani has sought permission for urgent circulation of the matter as Defendant Vessel is likely to leave the admiralty jurisdiction of this court today itself and urgent orders are required to be obtained. It is submitted that the Defendant Vessel is the sister vessel of MV TBC Badrinath, offending vessel.

3. Learned Advocate Mr. Sukumar Tirthani submitted that the maritime claim arises for losses caused to the plaintiff on account of misdelivery of cargo, that is release of cargo without the production of Original Bills of Lading.

4. It is submitted that sell and purchase of 10,000 MTs of RG6 Grade Ball Clay and 3500 MTs of Feldspar was negotiated between the Plaintiff (seller) and One Future Ceramic and Porcelain, Saudi Arabia (Buyer) and two purchase orders, PO 0006264-1 and PO-0006290-2 for FOB (free on board) Kandla Port were issued. The payment mode was finalized by way of irrevocable Letter of Credit. Pursuant to the purchase orders, the Plaintiff issued invoices dated 918 and 919, both dated 20/06/2025. The total invoiced value of the cargo under the aforementioned invoices was USD 705,000.

5. It is further submitted that irrevocable Letters of Credit were opened by Arab National Bank in favor of Plaintiff, where as per the terms, the payment was to be made within sixty (60) days from the issuance of Bills of Lading and upon the receipt of delivery documents.

6. It is further submitted that pursuant to the receipt, the cargo was loaded onto the vessel MV TBC Badrinath. The clean mate’s receipts dated 09/07/2025 and clean bills of lading with BL No. TBC/KDL-SA/003 and TBC/KDL-SA/004 dated 10/07/2025 were issued by and for and on behalf of the master of MV TBC Badrinath. Furthermore, for the export of the cargo from Kandla Port, the Plaintiff incurred expenses of INR 39,91,412 towards storage, wharfage, port handling charges, royalty, customs clearance, etc.

7. It is further submitted that pursuant to obtaining the documents, all the necessary original documents were couriered by the Plaintiff’s bank to Arab National Bank in order to honor the Letters of Credit. However, upon receipt of the original delivery documents, Arab National Bank raised certain discrepancies which were ultimately waived/ accepted by the receiver on 23/07/2025.

8. It is further submitted that even though the discrepancies were waived by the receiver, the receiver never obtained the possession of the delivery documents. Regardless of this, the master of MV TBC Badrinath, permitted delivery of the cargo without the production and surrender of the Original Bills of Lading. Eventually, the letters of credit issued in favour of the Plaintiff expired, and the delivery documents, including the original Bills of Lading, were returneds by Arab National Bank to the Plaintiff’s bank. As a consequence of the release of the cargo without production and surrender of the original Bills of Lading, the Plaintiff was wrongfully deprived of payment under the letters of credit and has suffered significant financial loss on account of the misdelivery of the cargo.

9. It is further submitted that the Defendants are in flagrant breach of their obligation resulting in loss suffered by the Plaintiff and that the Defendant Vessel and her owners, are therefore, liable to make good the losses suffered by the plaintiff which has given rise to the present claim of misdelivery of the cargo on account of operation of the Defendant Vessel and hence, it would amount to a maritime claim under Section 3 r/w Sections 4(1)(f), and 4(1)(g) of the Admiralty (Jurisdiction and Settlement of Maritime Claims) Act, 2017. The Plaintiff further