The Admiralty Judge Mr. Justice S.J. Kathawalla of the Bombay High Court
had ordered arrest of two vessels namely m.t. Pratibha Tapi and m,t.
Pratibha Neera in one admiralty suit filed by Indian Register of Shipping
through their attorney Ms. S. Priya.
The vessel m.t.
Pratibha Tapi was given priority for auction sale as the vessel was in a
bad condition and was auction sold for INR 18.25 crore to a ship breaker. The
Bombay High Court have now scheduled the timeline for auction sale of the
vessel m.t. Pratibha Neera and the reserve price for the vessel is fixed
at INR 23 crore. The auction sale of the vessel m.t. Pratibha Neera is
scheduled before the admiralty judge on August 23, 2013 at 3.00 PM.
Pacific Ship Supplies Pte Ltd and Avalontec Singapore Pte Ltd, both
Singapore based company have also filed legal action by filing an
admiralty suit in the Bombay High Court and have arrested the said ship
through their solicitors Brus Chambers. The vessel is presently lying at
Visakhapatnam, India. Copy of the order for sale of the vessel can be
downloaded by
clicking here.
Private sector shipping company Pratibha Shipping, owned by A.N. Pawar and
family which had a fleet of
nine oil tankers, ran into financial crunch, had planned to dispose of
their ships. The company had not been paying salaries regularly for more
than a year. But no one shed a tear till the company’s vessels were held
up, as shipping industry has been facing prolonged recession. All their vessels are now either auction sold or scheduled to
be sold. For the past couple of months, the financial position of the
company has been deteriorating which has resulted in the stranding of all
nine ships, statutory and mandatory certificates (of ships) had also
expired.
Earlier the company had plans to renew the ship's statutory
certification and thereafter continue commercial operations with m.t.
Pratibha Neera (double hull, 28,610 DWT) but this did not work out.
It is understandable for a company in financial trouble to borrow
as much as possible. But the case of Pratibha is unbelievable. A
Mercantile Marine Department official said in the case of some ships, the
company had borrowed several times the value of the ships, most of which
are over 30 years old. It is learnt that against one or more ships, the
company borrowed as much as Rs 100 crore, although the value could be a
fourth of that. How the lenders agreed to such a high leverage is
anybody’s guess. Details of the bank loans could not be obtained. However,
it is learnt that co-operative banks have the maximum exposure to Pratibha
Shipping. As on March 2011, the company had outstanding term loans of over
Rs 270 crore from banks such as Cosmos Co-operative Bank, Saraswat Bank,
Axis Bank, State Bank of India and Corporation Bank, according to data
available with a rating agency, which had suspended its rating recently.
