Section 7 in The Merchant Shipping (Seamen's Levy of Fees) Rules, 1974
7. Refusal for port clearance.
(1)Where any master, owner or agent of a ship fails to make payment of annual fee due from him within the time fixed under rule 3, the proper officer shall serve a notice on the master, owner or agent of the ship concerned calling upon him to pay the fee within thirty days from the date of such notice, where after he may communicate the particulars of the defaulter to the Collector of Customs who shall not grant port clearance of the ship until the amount of annual fee due in respect of that ship, including the expenses of collecting such a fee have been paid or until adequate security for payment thereof under rule 5 has been furnished to his satisfaction.(2)If any ship in respect of which annual fee is payable at any port leaves such port without the amount referred to in sub-rule (1) having been paid, the Collector of Customs. may by writing require the Collector of Customs at any other port to which the ship may proceed, or in which she may be, to recover the said amount.(3)Any Collector of Customs to whom a requisition is sent under sub-rule (2) shall proceed to recover the said amounts as if it were payable under these rules at the port at which he is the Customs Collector and the Certificate of the Collector of Customs at the port at which the said amount became payable, stating that amount payable shall be sufficient proof in any proceedings under these rules that such amount is payable.(4)The Collector of Customs shall, on recovery of the amount referred to in sub-rule (3), issue to the person paying the same a receipt in the form specified in Schedule I and shall forward the same together with the other papers, if any, to the proper officer through the Collector of Customs at the port at which the said amount became payable.
