Any claim by the owner or consignee or assignee of any bill of lading
of any goods carried into any port in India in any ship for damage done to
the goods or any part thereof by the negligence or misconduct of, or for
any breach of duty or breach of contract on the part of, the owner, master
or crew of the ship, unless it is shown to the satisfaction of the court
that at the time of the institution of the action any owner or part-owner
of the ship is domiciled in India.
This section has been construed liberally by the Indian High Courts which
have held that, in order to attract the jurisdiction, it is not necessary
that the goods should be imported into India or that their carriage should
be for delivery in India. It is sufficient if the goods are carried into
an Indian port and there is a breach of duty or contract on the part of
the master or owner of the ship. An unpaid vendor exercising his right of
stoppage in transit can call upon the master of the ship to deliver the
goods and refusal on the part of the latter would constitute a breach of
duty so as to attract the jurisdiction.
The section has been held to apply not only to cases of damage, actual or
constructive, done to the goods in the strict sense but also to cases of
non-delivery or delay in delivery. Unless damage, actual or constructive,
is done to the goods or in other words, unless the goods carried or to be
carried are affected in some manner, the section can have no application.
A cause of action based on false statements or misstatements made in a
bill of lading is not a cause of action founded on a breach of contract of
carriage or breach of duty in relation to carriage within the meaning of
the section. "Carriage of goods", in the context of the section, means
carriage of goods actually shipped and not hypothetical goods which ought
to have been shipped but were never shipped. There can be no breach of
contract of carriage or breach of duty in relation to carriage within the
meaning of the section before the goods are delivered to the carrier.
The object of this section is not to provide a remedy for something done
which is not connected with carriage or delivery of actual goods; a claim
for issuing an antedated bill of lading or a false bill of lading, or a
bill of lading in contravention of the Hague Rules is a claim arising out
of a bill of lading but is not a claim within the scope of the section
because, without anything more, such a claim is not in respect of damage
done to the goods nor does it relate to the goods carried by the ship; a
claim based on the wrongful exercise of lien on cargo by a ship owner is
an Admiralty cause within this section.
