Indian merchant shipping has operated under the Merchant Shipping Act, 2025 since 15 March 2026, a statute of 325 sections across 16 Parts that replaced the Act of 1958. Registration, seafarers, penalties and incident response are the four Parts carrying the sections that decide most practical questions.
Section 1(2) of the Merchant Shipping Act, 2025 provides that the Act shall come into force on such date as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint, and that different dates may be appointed for different provisions of this Act. Two consequences follow from that wording. Commencement is an executive act rather than a date Parliament fixed, and it can be split, so one Part of the statute can be operating while another waits for its own notification.
The power to appoint different dates for different provisions is what makes “in force” an unreliable shorthand here. A section can be operative while the rules that make it workable are still in draft, and that is the position a shipowner reads the statute in. Section 324 adds a second difficulty, because it repeals the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958 while excepting Part XIV from the repeal, and the exception does not carry section 411A with it. Anyone checking whether an old provision survives therefore has to read two statutes rather than one.
Both of those statutes reached working form only during 2026. The Central Government brought the Merchant Shipping Act, 2025 into force in March 2026, and the rules under it were notified in tranches through the middle of the year, among them the Maritime Labour Rules in July 2026 and the Registration of Vessels Rules in August 2026. Until each set arrived, the sections it serves were law without machinery.
Whether a particular vessel can go onto the Indian register at all is the first question Part III produces, and a worked example makes the conditions concrete. An Indian logistics company agrees in 2026 to buy a second-hand bulk carrier from a foreign seller, and intends to run her between Indian ports and the Gulf under the Indian flag.
The company clears the ownership gate, because a company incorporated in India with its registered office here is one of the owners section 15(1) qualifies. What the company cannot do is work from the 1958 position that an Indian vessel must be wholly owned by a qualifying Indian entity, because section 15(1) now fixes who may own and leaves the permitted proportion of ownership to a notification by the Central Government.
Two further points then decide the timetable for the company. If the parties structure the transaction as a bareboat charter with ownership to pass at the end of the term rather than as an outright sale, the registering provision is section 16 and not section 15. The second point is section 15(7), under which an Indian vessel proceeding to sea without a valid certificate of registration shall be detained until a valid certificate is produced, which makes registration the gating step rather than a formality that can follow delivery.
Is the Merchant Shipping Act, 2025 in force yet?
The Merchant Shipping Act, 2025 has been in force since 15 March 2026, the date the Central Government appointed in exercise of the power under section 1(2). It is Act No. 24 of 2025, it received the President’s assent on 18 August 2025, and it was published in the Gazette of India, Extraordinary, Part II Section 1, No. 29, of that date. A corrigendum to the published text followed in September 2025.
The statute runs to 325 sections arranged in 16 Parts, which is roughly half the length of the Act it replaced and only one layer of the wider body of maritime law that reaches a vessel. Parts I and II carry the definitions, the two Boards and the maritime administration. Parts III to VIII run from registration through training, seafarers, safety, pollution and certification, and Parts IX to XVI cover liability, marine incidents, casualty investigation, wreck and salvage, sailing and fishing vessels, penalties and an amendment to the Marine Aids to Navigation Act, 2021.
The long title explains why those Parts run in that order. Parliament enacted the statute to consolidate and amend the law relating to merchant shipping, to ensure compliance with India’s obligations under the maritime treaties to which India is a party, and to ensure the development of Indian shipping. Section 3 then defines the conventions those obligations come from, among them the Ballast Water Management Convention of 2004, so a Part can be read against the instrument it implements.
Administration sits in section 7, which provides for the Central Government to appoint a Director-General of Maritime Administration to exercise the powers and discharge the duties conferred by the Act. The Central Government may direct that its own powers be exercisable by the Director-General, who may sub-delegate them with prior approval, and the officers appointed under section 8, including surveyors, work under the Director-General’s superintendence. The Act establishes no fast-track maritime tribunal, although secondary coverage has said otherwise, because the word Tribunal appears once in the definitions, at section 3(68), and it means only the Tribunal constituted under section 89 for seafarer disputes.
Repeal and savings under Section 324 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 2025
Section 324(1) repeals the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958, except Part XIV but not including section 411A therein, and it also repeals the Coasting Vessels Act, 1838. The carve-out reads oddly until the companion statute is put beside it, because Part XIV of the 1958 Act carried the coasting trade licensing regime and the Coastal Shipping Act, 2025 had already repealed that Part, except section 411A, a week before this legislation received assent. The words of section 324 except Part XIV from this repeal but do not extend the exception to section 411A, so the one provision the earlier statute had left standing goes with the rest of the 1958 Act. Coasting trade and cabotage are now governed by the Coastal Shipping Act and not by the Merchant Shipping Act at all.
Section 324(2) then saves almost everything built under the repealed law. Rules, regulations, bye-laws, orders, notifications and exemptions made under the repealed enactments continue, until revoked, as though they had been made under the new Act, and offices, officers and bodies created under the old law are deemed to have been created under the new one. A document referring to a repealed enactment is read as referring to this Act, and a fine levied under the old law may be recovered as if it had been levied under the new one.
Registration carries a saving of its own in section 15(4), which provides that a vessel registered at a port in India under an enactment repealed by the Act is deemed, at the commencement of the Act, to have been registered under it and recognised as an Indian vessel. An owner whose vessel was on the Indian register in February 2026 therefore had nothing to re-file. Nothing else in the statute reaches a vessel that is not on the register, which is why Part III is the first Part a new owner meets.
Who can own an Indian vessel under Section 15?
Section 15(1) qualifies three classes of owner. The first is a citizen of India, and the provision says expressly that this includes a Non-Resident Indian and an Overseas Citizen of India. The second is a company or a body established by or under a Central Act or a State Act that has its registered office or principal place of business in India. The third is any other person or body the Central Government specifies by notification.
The controlling words sit in the opening of the sub-section, which qualifies those owners “in such proportion of ownership as may be notified by the Central Government”. Under the 1958 Act an Indian vessel had to be wholly owned by a qualifying Indian entity, so a joint venture carrying foreign equity in the owning company could not fly the Indian flag. Section 15(1) replaces that all-or-nothing test with a proportion the executive sets, so whether a particular vessel can be flagged in India now turns on a notification rather than on the section alone.
Four further sub-sections of section 15 matter in practice, and the first two settle who stays off the register and where it is kept. Section 15(2) provides that a vessel wholly owned by an Overseas Citizen of India is not required to be registered as an Indian vessel, and section 15(3) lets the Central Government declare any port or place a port of registry while requiring every Indian vessel to be registered under Part III. Section 15(5) brings government vessels onto the register, other than vessels of the Indian Navy, the Indian Coast Guard, the customs authorities, the Central Armed Police Forces and the police. Section 15(8) allows a vessel other than an Indian vessel that was abandoned in Indian waters and later acquired by an eligible entity to be registered under the prescribed procedure.
The mechanics then run through the rest of Part III, which section 14 applies to sea-going vessels. Section 20 sets the procedure for registration and carries a penalty for an owner who fails to register, and section 22 restricts the certificate of registration to the lawful navigation of the vessel. Section 30 governs the transfer of a registered mortgage, section 33 requires a fresh application where a vessel is so altered as not to correspond with its registered particulars, and section 37 provides for the national colours an Indian vessel must hoist.
Bareboat charter-cum-demise and recycling registration under Sections 16 and 17
A second route onto the register runs through section 16, under which a foreign vessel chartered by an Indian charterer on a bareboat charter-cum-demise contract may be registered in the prescribed manner and subject to prescribed conditions. The Explanation to the section defines the arrangement as a bareboat charter where ownership of the vessel is intended to be transferred, after a specified period, to the charterer. The practical effect is that an operator can put a vessel under the Indian flag without buying her outright.
The section 16 route carries an exposure of its own, because section 281 lists a failure by the Indian charterer to comply with the conditions prescribed under section 16 as the first entry in its penalty table, with a ceiling of two lakh rupees. Registration under section 16 also does not move legal ownership off the primary registry, so the charterer takes on the obligations attaching to an Indian vessel while the registered owner abroad remains the owner.
Section 17 supplies a third and narrower route. A vessel not registered under the Act that is sought to be recycled in India may be registered temporarily, which gives a recycling yard a registered vessel to work on without full registration of one that will shortly cease to exist. Each of these routes leads to the same place, because a vessel on the Indian register carries a crew, and Part V is where the Act concentrates its new obligations.
Duties a shipowner owes every seafarer on board
A shipowner’s duties to seafarers begin before anyone is engaged, because section 45 requires every Indian vessel to carry seafarers holding certificates of competency or proficiency on manning scales notified by the Central Government. Section 47 regulates the institutes that issue the training behind those certificates, and conducting a training course in contravention of section 47(2) carries the heaviest penalty in the Act’s table, a ceiling of twenty lakh rupees.
Part V then sets the standards for the people on board, and section 54 applies it to every seafarer, to recruitment and placement services and to shipowners. Section 56 classifies seafarers notwithstanding anything in any other law, which settles their status for the purposes of the Act rather than leaving it to general labour legislation. Section 57 applies the maritime labour standards contained in the Maritime Labour Convention, and the Merchant Shipping (Maritime Labour) Rules, 2026 supply the detail under it.
Section 59 fixes the age floor for anyone who goes to sea. No person under the age of sixteen years may be engaged, employed or carried to sea to work in any capacity on a vessel, and a breach is priced per head: the penalty table sets a ceiling of two lakh rupees for every seafarer engaged in contravention of the section. Sections 60 and 61 add further engagement restrictions, each with its own per-seafarer penalty.
Engagement, the employment agreement and discharge under Sections 62, 63 and 80
Section 62(1) narrows who may engage a seafarer at all, routing engagement through a recruitment and placement service or the other channels the sub-section names. The rest of the section imposes obligations on those services, including the non-discrimination requirement in section 62(2)(d), and the penalty table prices a contravention of section 62(1) at up to three lakh rupees for every seafarer.
Section 63(1) requires the master or owner of every Indian vessel, or the recruitment and placement service, to enter into an agreement with the seafarer. That agreement is the instrument that carries the terms of service, and a contravention of section 63(1) attracts a ceiling of fifty thousand rupees. Section 80 then governs the other end of the relationship, requiring a seafarer serving in an Indian vessel to be given a discharge on termination, with penalties attaching separately to a failure to discharge properly and to a discharge made in breach of the section.
Where a dispute arises, section 89 supplies the forum. The Central Government may refer a dispute of the kind that section describes to the Tribunal constituted under section 89(1), and sections 89(8) and 89(14) carry penalties for breaching that Tribunal’s decisions and for altering a seafarer’s terms contrary to them.
Abandoned seafarers and abandoned vessels under Section 3
Two definitions in section 3 give the Act a vocabulary the 1958 statute did not have. Section 3(1) defines an abandoned seafarer as one deemed abandoned in violation of the Act, the rules or the seafarers’ employment agreement, where the shipowner fails to cover the cost of repatriation, or leaves the seafarer without necessary maintenance and support, or otherwise unilaterally severs ties, including by failing to pay contractual wages for a period of at least two months. The two-month wage test is the concrete limb, because it turns unpaid wages into a defined status rather than a grievance.
Section 3(2) defines an abandoned vessel through five limbs. A vessel is abandoned where the shipowner gives up hope of recovering her or any intention of returning to her; where the master has no financial means to operate her; where the owner is unknown or untraceable within a reasonable time despite notification of the flag State or the consulate; where the owner fails to meet obligations on safety, security, pollution prevention or seafarer welfare and the insurer, salvor or contractor also fails to meet them within a reasonable time; or where a court or public authority has restrained her and whoever was made responsible fails to discharge the owner’s obligations. The Explanation extends the fourth limb to a failure by the charterer, manager or operator.
Each of those duties is only as strong as the consequence of breaching it, and the Act’s answer in most cases is a monetary penalty rather than a prosecution.
What does a contravention of the Merchant Shipping Act, 2025 cost?
A contravention costs a monetary penalty fixed against the section breached, and section 281(2) carries a table of ninety-six numbered contraventions, each mapped to its section and its rupee ceiling. Section 281(1) supplies the residual rule: a person who contravenes any provision of the Act, or any rule or notification made under it, or fails to comply with a provision it was their duty to comply with, is liable to a penalty extending to fifty thousand rupees where no penalty is specially provided.
Three entries from the section 281(2) table show how the pricing works in practice. Entry 7 prices the conduct of a training course in contravention of section 47(2) at up to twenty lakh rupees, which is the highest ceiling in the table. Entry 11 prices the engagement or employment of a person below sixteen years, contrary to section 59, at up to two lakh rupees for every seafarer engaged in the contravention. Entry 2 prices an owner’s failure to register a vessel under section 20(1) at up to fifty thousand rupees, and several entries add a daily figure for a continuing default, as entry 5 does under section 33.
Not everything has been converted to a penalty. Section 281(3) keeps a residue of conduct as a criminal offence, and section 283(2) provides that no court inferior to that of a Judicial Magistrate of the first class shall try an offence under it. Section 283(1) sets the place of trial, which may be where the person is found or a court the Central Government notifies.
Imposition, appeal and compounding under Section 282
The authority that imposes a section 281(2) penalty is the principal officer, under section 282(1), and not a court. That is the structural change in Part XIV: a shipping regulator adjudicates in the first instance, and the criminal courts are reserved for the residue section 281(3) keeps.
Section 282 then builds a short appellate route around that officer. A person aggrieved by the principal officer’s order may appeal to the Director-General within thirty days of receiving it, in the form prescribed by the Merchant Shipping (Appeal against Penalties and Miscellaneous Matters) Rules, 2026, and the Director-General must dispose of that appeal within thirty days. Section 282(4) requires that no order be passed under the section unless the parties have been given a reasonable opportunity of being heard, so the hearing requirement attaches at both levels.
Two further sub-sections of section 282 decide what happens once a penalty stands. Section 282(5) allows a contravention for which a penalty is provided to be compounded for the first contravention, by an officer the Central Government designates by notification, which gives a first-time defaulter a route out that a repeat defaulter does not have. Section 282(6) provides that a penalty imposed by the principal officer or the Director-General and not deposited shall be recovered as an arrear of land revenue, notwithstanding anything else in the Act.
Pollution, liability and emergency response at sea
The Parts a reader meets after something has gone wrong are Parts VII to XII, organised by the kind of harm rather than by the kind of vessel. Part VII, which applies under section 131 to Indian vessels and to other vessels in Indian waters, deals with the prevention and containment of pollution from vessels and the response to it. Part VIII requires, by section 144, that every Indian vessel, company or port undergo survey, audit and certification unless otherwise exempted.
Part IX carries maritime liability and compensation across five chapters, each opening with its own application provision. Chapter I deals with collision and accident at sea from section 153, and Chapter II governs limitation of liability for maritime claims from section 162, which a shipowner, a salvor and the insurer may all invoke. Chapter III applies the civil liability regime for oil pollution damage from section 175, Chapter IV the bunker oil pollution regime from section 196, and Chapter V the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund regime from section 211.
Chapter II also carries the insurance requirement that reaches every owner, in section 172. Every registered owner of an Indian vessel, and of any other vessel entering or departing an Indian port or operating in coastal waters, must maintain compulsory insurance or other prescribed security against maritime claims subject to limitation. The amount for each vessel per incident must be at least equal to the relevant limitation figure under section 162. That requirement sits inside a wider body of maritime law in India the Act does not displace.
The investigative and salvage Parts sit immediately after those liability chapters. Part XI provides for the investigation of marine casualties from section 231, which is the inquiry function rather than the response function. Part XII splits into wreck, from section 233, which reaches wrecks within Indian territory including coastal waters, and salvage, from section 247, which reaches both salvage operations in Indian waters and salvage proceedings instituted in India. These are also the Parts whose rules arrived last, the Ballast Water and Sediments Control and Management Rules and the Safety of Navigation Rules having been notified in August 2026.
Marine incidents and the primary response party under Part X
Part X is the Act’s addition rather than reorganised old material, and it is built on two defined terms in section 224. A marine incident is an event, or sequence of events, occurring directly in connection with the operation of a vessel that endangers, or would endanger if not corrected, the safety of the vessel, its occupants, any other person or the environment, and the definition expressly takes in marine violations, casualties, disasters, cyclones and storms. A maritime emergency response is the speedy action taken to minimise damage to the vessel, the passengers, the seafarers, the cargo and the marine environment.
Responsibility is then allocated rather than left to be worked out at sea. Section 225 requires the Central Government to appoint one or more nodal authorities to administer and supervise marine incidents and the corresponding response. Section 226 names the shipowner, the master, the seafarers of the vessel concerned and such other persons as the Central Government notifies as the primary response party. That party must comply with the directions, advisories and instructions the nodal authority issues, and a failure to do so carries a penalty under the table in section 281.
Two further provisions equip the nodal authority for that work. Section 227 requires the Central Government to notify prevention plans and response procedures, and section 228 gives it power to direct Central and State administrative bodies in writing, notwithstanding any other law, and to requisition officers and other authorities to assist.
Frequently asked questions
Where can I read or download the Merchant Shipping Act, 2025 bare act?
The authoritative text is the Act as published in the Gazette of India, Extraordinary, Part II Section 1, No. 29, dated 18 August 2025, under reference CG-DL-E-19082025-265484. It is available as a PDF from the PRS Legislative Research mirror and from the Directorate General’s own site, and the India Code entry carries it as Act No. 24 of 2025. The References below link to the gazette text.
Is the Merchant Shipping Act, 2025 in force, and are the rules under it notified?
The Act came into force on 15 March 2026, and the rules under it were notified in tranches during the rest of that year. The Cargo Vessel Construction, Fire Appliances and Survey Rules and the Life-Saving Appliances and Arrangements Rules were notified in July 2026, and the Maritime Labour Rules at the end of that month. The Ballast Water and Sediments Control and Management Rules and the Safety of Navigation Rules followed in early August 2026, and the Registration of Vessels Rules later in August.
How many sections and Parts does the Merchant Shipping Act, 2025 have, and what did it repeal?
The Act has 325 sections arranged in 16 Parts. Section 324 repeals the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958, except Part XIV but not including section 411A, and also repeals the Coasting Vessels Act, 1838. Part XIV of the 1958 Act, which carried coasting trade licensing, had already been repealed by the Coastal Shipping Act, 2025.
What changed between the 1958 Act and the 2025 Act on who may own an Indian vessel?
The requirement that an Indian vessel be wholly owned by a qualifying Indian entity has gone. Section 15(1) qualifies a citizen of India, including a Non-Resident Indian and an Overseas Citizen of India, a company or body under a Central or State Act with its registered office or principal place of business in India, and any other person the Central Government notifies. It then qualifies those owners in such proportion of ownership as the Central Government notifies, so the permitted share is now set by notification rather than by the section itself.
Who imposes a penalty under the Merchant Shipping Act, 2025, and can it be appealed?
The principal officer imposes a penalty under the table in section 281(2), by virtue of section 282(1). An appeal lies to the Director-General within thirty days of receipt of the order, and the Director-General must decide it within thirty days. No order may be passed without a reasonable opportunity of being heard, a first contravention may be compounded by a designated officer, and an unpaid penalty is recovered as an arrear of land revenue.
References
The Merchant Shipping Act, 2025 (Act No. 24 of 2025), assented to on 18 August 2025 (sections 1, 3, 7, 8, 14 to 17, 20, 22, 30, 33, 37, 45, 47, 54, 56, 57, 59 to 63, 80, 89, 131, 132, 144, 153, 162, 172, 175, 196, 211, 223 to 228, 231, 233, 247, 281 to 283, 324 and 325 cited)
Gazette of India, Extraordinary, Part II Section 1, No. 29, 18 August 2025, CG-DL-E-19082025-265484, publishing the Act
India Code, the Merchant Shipping Act, 2025 (Act No. 24 of 2025)
The Coastal Shipping Act, 2025 (Act No. 20 of 2025), which repealed Part XIV of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958 except section 411A
The Merchant Shipping Act, 1958 (Act 44 of 1958), repealed by section 324
The Coasting Vessels Act, 1838 (Act 19 of 1838), repealed by section 324
The Marine Aids to Navigation Act, 2021, amended by section 325
Maritime law in India, iPleaders
Maritime laws in India, interpretation and analysis, iPleaders
Innocent passage and hot pursuit under UNCLOS, iPleaders
Disclaimer
This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The Merchant Shipping Act, 2025 operates alongside rules notified under it at different times during 2026, and the answer to a question about registration, manning, certification or liability may turn on which rules were in force on the relevant date. A shipowner, charterer, recruitment and placement service or seafarer facing a question under the Act should take advice from a qualified practitioner on the provisions and rules actually in force.