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Issues: (i) Whether an importer can avoid liability to pay demurrage charges to the custodian of the goods merely because the goods were detained by the customs authorities and a detention certificate was issued; (ii) Whether the petitioner was entitled to a writ directing waiver or shifting of the demurrage burden to the customs authorities.
Issue (i): Whether an importer can avoid liability to pay demurrage charges to the custodian of the goods merely because the goods were detained by the customs authorities and a detention certificate was issued.
Analysis: The governing principle is that port, airport and warehousing custodians are entitled to recover demurrage or detention charges for goods kept in their custody. The fact that customs detention may have been unjustified does not, by itself, extinguish the importer's liability to the custodian. A detention certificate may have the effect of reducing charges in appropriate cases, but the legal obligation to pay demurrage to the custodian remains unless the competent authority grants relief under the relevant policy or statutory power.
Conclusion: The importer remained liable to pay demurrage charges, and the mere issuance of a detention certificate did not create a right to complete waiver as against the custodian.
Issue (ii): Whether the petitioner was entitled to a writ directing waiver or shifting of the demurrage burden to the customs authorities.
Analysis: The relief sought could not be granted because the petitioner had already pursued an earlier petition on the same grievance and then withdrawn it, no new factual or legal basis for complete waiver was shown, and no challenge was made to any waiver policy or to mala fides in the refusal. The established law also did not support a blanket direction compelling customs authorities to bear the demurrage in every case of detention.
Conclusion: The petitioner was not entitled to the writ relief sought for waiver or shifting of the demurrage liability.
Final Conclusion: The challenge to the demurrage demand failed, and the petitioner obtained no relief against the custodian or the customs authorities.
Ratio Decidendi: An importer remains liable to pay demurrage to the custodian for goods detained by customs, and a court will not ordinarily direct complete waiver or shift that liability to customs absent a legally sustainable basis or competent policy support.
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