Private contract charges during COVID-19 lockdown could not be overridden by executive directions, except limited relief for shipping lines.

Executive directions issued during the COVID-19 lockdown could not compel CFSs, ICDs or shipping lines to waive detention, demurrage, ground rent or allied charges where those liabilities arose from private commercial arrangements. The Disaster Management Act, customs law, port legislation and the Merchant Shipping Act were described as limited to their statutory fields and not as sources of a general power to override legitimate private contracts. The commentary also notes that policy relief in the pandemic context would not be struck down absent patent arbitrariness or discrimination, though shipping-line advisories were said not to be binding against contractual rights. The connected writ petitions were therefore substantially dismissed, with only limited relief for shipping lines.

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Issues: (i) Whether the orders, advisories and circulars issued during the COVID-19 lockdown could be enforced to compel CFSs, ICDs and shipping lines to waive detention charges, demurrage, ground rent and allied charges; (ii) Whether the Disaster Management Act, 2005 or the Customs Act, 1962, the Major Port Trusts Act, 1963 and the Merchant Shipping Act conferred power on the authorities to regulate or override such private charging arrangements; (iii) Whether the governmental dispensation was liable to be struck down or extended on the ground of arbitrariness or discrimination.

Issue (i): Whether the orders, advisories and circulars issued during the COVID-19 lockdown could be enforced to compel CFSs, ICDs and shipping lines to waive detention charges, demurrage, ground rent and allied charges.

Analysis: The directions issued by the Ministry of Shipping were confined to Major Ports and the statutory bodies administering them. They did not confer any enforceable power to regulate charges levied by CFSs, ICDs or shipping lines, particularly where such entities operated outside Major Port limits and charged under private arrangements. The DGS advisories were, in substance, advisory for shipping lines, and the CBIC circular was only an inter-departmental communication. The Court also held that the contractual or commercial character of the charges could not be displaced by executive instructions, and that no across-the-board mandamus could issue on the basis of disputed facts about individual inability to clear goods during lockdown.

Conclusion: The petitioners, save in the shipping lines matter, were not entitled to a mandamus for waiver or refund of the impugned charges.

Issue (ii): Whether the Disaster Management Act, 2005 or the Customs Act, 1962, the Major Port Trusts Act, 1963 and the Merchant Shipping Act conferred power on the authorities to regulate or override such private charging arrangements.

Analysis: The Disaster Management Act was held to permit mitigation and relief measures only within its statutory limits. It did not authorise the State to interfere with economic aspects of legitimate subsisting contracts between private parties with no direct causal connection to the State. The Customs regime regulated customs clearance, custody and handling, but did not create power to prohibit recovery of contractual storage or detention charges, except in the limited situation of seized, detained or confiscated goods. The Major Port Trusts Act empowered directions to the Board and TAMP in relation to port services and rates, but not to CFSs, ICDs or shipping lines beyond the statute's field. The Merchant Shipping Act likewise did not furnish power to restrain shipping lines from levying detention charges.

Conclusion: No statutory source supported a general power to compel waiver of the disputed charges by CFSs, ICDs or shipping lines.

Issue (iii): Whether the governmental dispensation was liable to be struck down or extended on the ground of arbitrariness or discrimination.

Analysis: The Court found no hostile discrimination between persons identically situated and held that the petitioners could not demand a uniform fiscal or commercial relief merely because some mitigation had been granted in selected situations. Economic and policy choices made in the pandemic context were entitled to judicial restraint unless shown to be patently arbitrary, discriminatory or mala fide. On the facts, the Court declined to treat the impugned measures as constitutionally infirm, while recognising that the shipping lines' challenge to the advisories succeeded because those advisories could not override private contracts.

Conclusion: The challenge on constitutional grounds failed, except to the extent that the shipping lines were entitled to declarations that the advisories were not binding and could not override private contracts.

Final Conclusion: The connected writ petitions were substantially dismissed, with limited relief granted in the petition filed by the shipping lines; the impugned executive instructions were not enforceable to compel blanket waiver of detention or demurrage charges, but the shipping lines were entitled to succeed on the limited challenge to the advisories against them.

Ratio Decidendi: Executive directions issued under disaster-management or port-related statutes cannot be used to alter or override the economic terms of legitimate private contracts between non-State parties, unless the statute clearly authorises such interference and the measure survives scrutiny against arbitrariness and discrimination.

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