Marine Cargo
insurance covers goods whilst they are moved from one to place to
another. The coverage is governed by the clauses attached to the Policy
and in India – it would be ‘Inland Transit (Rail/Road) clause’ when the transit is by
road / rail and Institute Cargo Clauses [C/B/A] when moved by sea. Besides
the basic perils, there is ‘Theft, Pilferage and Non-delivery’ attached
specifically to policies extending coverage.
In legal parlance,
Non-delivery, is failure to convey or transfer a legal instrument or goods as
required by law or custom. The coverage offered under Marine Policy is
primarily one providing indemnity when the consignment in its entirety is
not delivered at destination by the Carrier to whom the goods were entrusted. There
have been varied interpretations depending the nature and circumstances of
non-delivery and Courts have held that where the goods are not delivered by the
Carrier because the vessel was arrested would not be construed as
non-delivery. Also a mis-delivery where goods are delivered by the
contracted Carrier to a wrong party on production of bill of lading is
construed outside the purview of this coverage.
The
word **lost** has many meanings ~ unable to be found or recovered; confused;
destroyed physically; no longer available; engrossed – are some of them. In an interesting news reported in Times of
India, an Ukranian got back his back a year after he lost it in a train.
Nearly a year after losing
his bag on a crowded train, a Ukrainian national finally got it back on Tuesday
with all the val uables intact. Praising the efforts of Railway Protec tion
Force personnel in Kar war, Dimitri Koniev said “It's a miracle I got my bag
back.“
On February
13, 2015, RPF personnel found an unclaimed
bag in coach B2 of Veraval-Thiruvananthapu ram Express. Railway cops informed
the TTE onboard and sent the bag to Karwar RPF station. Valuables worth Rs 1
lakh, including a laptop, digital camera and lens, tripod, headphone, USB drive
and a charger was found in the bag. Its owner, an Ukranian - Dimitri Koniev had
also left Rs 15,000 in cash, two gold master cards, some Turkish currency and
other documents in the bag. Since all the documents were Russian, cops found it
tough to trace the passenger immediately . In May 2015, Vinod Kumar took charge
as new RPF inspector of Karwar. He showed these documents to his friend Shajan,
who had just returned from Russia. Shajan studied the records and found a phone
number in it. He spoke to Dimitri Koniev and found out that he was the owner of
the bag and he had lost it in Madgaon station. The railway police informed
Dimitri that his bag was in safe custody and he can collect it after furnishing
relevant documents.
In an
unrelated incident reported in TOI, Jaikaran Singh, owner of the Balaji Gun
House in Kanpur, placed an order for 2,000 cartridges with the Popular Gun
House in Lucknow in August this year. Nothing was unusual or illegal about the
deal. Both are licensed arms dealers, and such dealings are common practice.
Popular Gun
House dispatched the cartridges through a private courier company on 8 August.
Singh received the parcel on 10 August, but when he opened it, he found pebbles
instead of cartridges. Jaikaran then checked with the owner of Popular Gun
House, and was told that there was nothing wrong with the consignment. All the
cartridges were said to have been packed in front of the executives of the
courier company. Then the consignee wrote
letters to the offices of the district magistrates of Lucknow and Kanpur. But
the officials who received the letters did not take any action.
The whole
incident would've probably got swept under the carpet had it not been for the
Additional District Magistrate of Kanpur, Avinash Singh, who suddenly came
across Jaikaran's letter. Realising the gravity of the incident, the ADM
immediately ordered an inquiry. "As many as 2,000 cartridges have gone
missing and the matter is serious. That doesn't necessarily mean that the
cartridges have been diverted to, say, terrorists or Maoists," said
Avinash. He said the investigators will
check if the arms dealer in Lucknow had actually packed the cartridges, and if
this was verified by the officials of the courier company. "If Popular Gun
House had packed the cartridges and the receiver in Kanpur finds pebbles, then
something must have gone wrong in transit," said the official. Administrative
officials think that Jaikaran is also at fault. "No doubt he informed
administrative officials. But he should have followed the matter if no action
was being initiated," said Avinash, adding, "And of course, we will
also find out why the officials who received his letter did not take any
immediate action into the matter."
The Uttar
Pradesh police have severely been jolted for several reasons. For one, the
incident took place in August, and for four months, they didn't know about the
missing cartridges. And this is a department that had claimed to spruce up
security arrangements following the terror attacks in Paris. In addition, arms
dealers in Lucknow and Kanpur have been under the scanner in the past for
supplying weapons and ammunition to Maoists and dacoits. Inspector general of
police, Kanpur, Ashutosh Pandey stated the matter to be grave. "The matter
will be thoroughly investigated by the police department. All the 2,000
cartridges have to be accounted for. Not even a single cartridge can go
missing."
In the last decade, the
transactions of several arms dealers in Lucknow and Kanpur have been thoroughly
probed by the police. The licences of arms dealers having alleged links to
Maoists in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh were cancelled. Ironically, a few years ago, the UP police
had busted a racket involving its own armoury department personnel, who were
directly supplying cartridges to Maoists. .. !!
Totally unconnected to this is the
‘ Nondelivery report’ : In the Internet's standard e-mail protocol
SMTP, a bounce message, also called a Non-Delivery Report/Receipt (NDR), a
(failed) Delivery Status Notification (DSN) message, a Non-Delivery
Notification (NDN) or simply a bounce, is an automated electronic mail message
from a mail system informing the sender of another message about a delivery
problem. The original message is said to have bounced without deliverance to
the recipient.
With regards – S. Sampathkumar
7th Jan 2016
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