Act Number: 44

Act Name: The Merchant Shipping Act, 1958

Year: 1958

Enactment Date: 1958-10-30

Long Title: An Act to foster the development and ensure the efficient maintenance of an Indian mercantile marine in a manner best suited to serve the national interests and for that purpose to establish a National Shipping Board to provide for the registration, certification, safety and security of Indian ships and generally to amend and consolidate the law relating to merchant shipping.

Ministry: Ministry of Shipping

Department:

Section 205: Stowaways and seamen carried under compulsion.
    (1) No person shall secrete himself and go to sea in a ship without the consent of either the owner, agent or master or of a mate, or of the person in charge of the ship or of any other person entitled to give that consent.
     (2) Every seafaring person to whom the master of a ship, is under the authority of this Act or any other law compelled to take on board and convey and every person who goes to sea in a ship without such consent as aforesaid, shall, so long as he remains in the ship, be subject to the same laws and regulations for preserving discipline and to the same fines and punishments for offences constituting or tending to a breach of discipline as if he were a member of, and has signed the agreement with, the crew.
     (3) The master of any Indian ship arriving at any port or place in or outside India and the master of any ship other than an Indian ship arriving at any port or place in India shall, if any person has gone to sea on that ship without the consent referred to in sub-section (1), report the fact in writing to the proper officer as soon as may be after the arrival of the ship.
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