Temiro

The 19 crew members on the 'Prem Mala' were in misery off Mumbai because the lockdown delayed the auction of the ship. Food, water and diesel were likely to run out in the next two days. The ship has been under arrest for the past three months after the owner has failed to clear its debt owed to the erstwhile UTI Capital Private Ltd. The Bombay High Court has asked the agency which has arrested the ship to provide essentials through the Mercator Limited. Captain Iftikhar Modak last week alerted various stakeholders including the Sheriff of Mumbai, the Directorate General of Shipping, the shipping company and Axis Trustee Services Ltd., requesting for supplies yet there is no clarity on who will provide them. On Jan 31, 2020. the Bombay High Court granted a plea by Axis Trustee Services Limited (ATSL), a beneficiary of the Axis Bank, for issuing an arrest warrant against the tanker. The owner of the ship owed UTI through ATSL ₹196 crore. On March 3, the Bombay High Court directed the Sheriff of Mumbai to conduct an auction sale. The bids were to be submitted on March 24 and an auction purchaser declared by the court two days later. But these were left incomplete after the lockdown was announced. In April, UTI paid for the essential supply on humanitarian reasons though it was not obliged to do so. On April 26, they approached the court to ask that it must either direct somebody to pay for the essentials or allow for the sale of the ship or guarantee that whoever pays for these supplies will get paid on priority after the sale. The court, however, thought that there was no urgency in this matter and effectively passed no order. If the supplies don’t reach the crew on time, it will be forced to abandon the ship. The morale onboard was very low as they have not been paid our salaries since January and our insurance has also expired. The captain was assigned duty for two months and my four-month long contract expired last week, but the shipowner said he can’t even send a boat to allow them to leave the ship because there were dues owed to them too.

Chartered to Indian Oil Co for 1 year for $13,250/day