Criminal liability when a seafarer dies or is seriously injured on board, the gaps in the law, and what families should do.
When a seafarer dies on board, the family is usually told two things. There is insurance, and the company will pay. Both are often true. Neither answers the question that matters most to a grieving family, which is whether anyone will be held responsible.
This note explains why money and accountability are two different things, where the law leaves families exposed, what the new criminal codes offer, and what to do in the first days after a mishap. It is written for seafarers and their families, and it names no one.
Every death or serious injury at sea raises two separate questions. The first is civil: who pays, and how much. The second is criminal: was the death caused by a rash or negligent act, and if so, by whom.
The civil question is well organised. Many Indian seafarers on foreign-going ships sail under a collective bargaining agreement that fixes a death or disability benefit. Under the typical agreement, that benefit is payable on death in service from almost any cause other than the seafarer’s own wilful act, without anyone having to prove fault.
Behind it stands the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006. Since the 2014 amendments took effect on 18 January 2017, Regulation 4.2 and Standard A4.2.1 require every shipowner to carry financial security, usually through its P&I club, for contractual claims for death and long-term disability. The Convention says the compensation must be paid in full and without delay, and that there must be no pressure to accept less than the contractual amount. Payment is without prejudice to other legal rights, though the shipowner may offset it against damages on any other claim arising from the same incident. The next of kin may claim directly against the security.
The criminal question has no such machinery. No collective agreement, no P&I policy and no certificate of financial security says anything about it. A policy of insurance indemnifies a civil loss. It cannot buy immunity from prosecution, and no contract can license an officer or an owner to be criminally negligent with a seafarer’s life. When the agreed sum is paid, the contractual debt is discharged. The question whether an offence was committed is untouched.
Families are rarely told this. They are told the matter is settled.
1. Nobody investigates by default. A death on a foreign-flagged ship in foreign waters falls first to the flag State and the port State. Their inquiries are often slow, sometimes perfunctory, and almost never shared with the family in India. No Indian authority opens a file automatically. Unless the family acts, the death may never be examined by anyone with the power to prosecute.
2. Time. The ship sails. The crew signs off and scatters. Recordings are overwritten, records are completed after the event, the space where the accident happened is cleaned and put back into service, and the belongings of the deceased are packed by the company. Evidence that exists on the day of the death may be gone within weeks.
3. Jurisdiction, and a quiet injustice. Section 1(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS) applies the Sanhita to any offence committed by a citizen of India anywhere in the world, and to any offence committed by any person on a ship registered in India. It does not, as a rule, reach a foreign officer on a foreign ship in foreign waters. So when Indian criminal law does bite, it bites on the Indian crew. The danger is obvious. A junior Indian officer who signed a permit is prosecuted, while the owner or manager who crewed the ship thinly, cut training or ignored its own safety system is never touched. Any complaint must be drafted with this in mind.
4. Corporate accountability. A company can be prosecuted, but its directors are not criminally liable merely because they are directors. The Supreme Court made this clear in Sunil Bharti Mittal v. Central Bureau of Investigation, (2015) 4 SCC 609. There must be material showing a director’s own role. Systemic failures are real, but they have to be proved against identified people.
5. The standard for criminal negligence. Criminal negligence is not the same as civil carelessness. In Jacob Mathew v. State of Punjab, (2005) 6 SCC 1, the Supreme Court held that for criminal liability the negligence must be gross, or of a very high degree. An error of judgment is not enough. This is a proper safeguard, but it means a criminal case needs evidence of a serious departure from safe practice, and that evidence has to be gathered early.
6. Paper. Families are often asked to sign a document headed “receipt” which, read closely, releases the owner, the managers, the officers, the insurers and a long list of others. Some also require the family to indemnify them, or to adopt the company’s account of how the death happened. A receipt should record the money received and nothing more. The Convention itself forbids pressure to accept less than the contractual amount.
7. A statutory trap. The Code on Social Security, 2020, which replaced the Employees’ Compensation Act, 1923 from 21 November 2025, keeps an old rule. Under section 74(7) of the Code, a suit for damages is not maintainable where the claimant has instituted a claim to compensation before the competent authority, or has made an agreement for compensation under that Chapter. Some employers now deposit the contractual sum with the authority instead of paying the family. A family that files a claim there without advice may give up a claim it never meant to give up. For accidents before 21 November 2025, the corresponding rule in section 3(5) of the 1923 Act may still apply.
Two provisions of the BNS do most of the work.
Section 106(1) punishes whoever causes the death of any person by doing any rash or negligent act not amounting to culpable homicide, with imprisonment which may extend to five years, and fine. It replaces section 304A of the Indian Penal Code.
Section 125 applies where a rash or negligent act endangers human life or the personal safety of others. Where hurt is caused, the punishment may extend to six months, or fine up to five thousand rupees, or both. Where grievous hurt is caused, it may extend to three years, or fine up to ten thousand rupees, or both. This is the provision for seafarers who survive but are maimed.
Both are cognizable offences. The police can register an FIR and investigate without an order from a Magistrate.
Where the facts show more than negligence, such as knowledge that an act was likely to cause death, graver offences may be engaged. That depends entirely on the evidence and should never be assumed.
Three procedural points matter in practice.
The family can report at home. Section 173(1) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS) allows information about a cognizable offence to be given irrespective of the area where the offence was committed. This is the zero FIR. In Lalita Kumari v. Government of Uttar Pradesh, (2014) 2 SCC 1, the Supreme Court held that registration of an FIR is mandatory where the information discloses a cognizable offence. The BNSS has since made one exception that matters here. Under section 173(3), for offences punishable with three years or more but less than seven, the officer in charge may, with the permission of an officer not below the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police, conduct a preliminary enquiry within fourteen days to see whether a prima facie case exists. Section 106(1) falls within that band. Families should expect such an enquiry, and should use those fourteen days to put documents before the police.
A death abroad is not beyond the police. Section 208 of the BNSS deals with offences committed outside India by a citizen of India, whether on the high seas or elsewhere, and by any person on a ship registered in India. Its proviso states that no such offence shall be inquired into or tried in India except with the previous sanction of the Central Government. Police stations sometimes treat this as a reason to refuse an FIR. It is not. In Thota Venkateswarlu v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (2011) 9 SCC 527, decided on the identically worded proviso to section 188 of the old Code, the Supreme Court held that sanction is needed before the trial begins, not for registration or investigation.
If the police will not act, there is a ladder. The substance of the information can be sent to the Superintendent of Police under section 173(4). If that fails, an application supported by an affidavit can be made to the Magistrate under section 175(3), who may order investigation after such inquiry as he thinks necessary and after hearing the police.
The Directorate General of Shipping, now the Directorate General of Maritime Administration (DGMA), records in its own enforcement manual that offences under the Merchant Shipping Act are non-cognizable. Prosecution under that law therefore runs through the Directorate and a Magistrate rather than the police.
DGS Order No. 10 of 2025, which adopted the Seafarers’ Code of Conduct Compliance and Enforcement Manual with effect from 1 January 2026, is worth knowing. It states that it applies to seafarers, recruitment and placement agencies, ship owners and managers. It recognises public complaints as a source of detection. It directs vigorous enforcement where there is evidence of a deliberate effort to conceal non-compliance. And it requires the Directorate’s criminal complaint to be filed within one year from the date on which the offence came to knowledge. A complaint to the Directorate should be made early, and it should name the companies responsible rather than invite action only against individual crew members.
Under section 9(1)(b) of the Admiralty (Jurisdiction and Settlement of Maritime Claims) Act, 2017, a claim for loss of life or personal injury occurring in direct connection with the operation of a vessel carries a maritime lien. Under section 9(2), that lien is extinguished after one year unless the vessel has been arrested or seized within that time. If the ship calls at an Indian port within the year, it may be possible to arrest it. After the year, that leverage is gone.
Families can prepare for this before anything goes wrong. Our note on the documents to leave at home and the certificates to photograph on board sets out what to keep, and our guide to the shipping company web explains how to identify the parties who must answer. For unpaid wages, see wage and contract disputes under MLC and Indian law.
When a seafarer dies on a ship at sea, no police officer comes to the ship. There is no scene visit, no inquest and no case diary. The flag State may hold an inquiry, but it is a toothless tiger. Its report rarely leads anywhere, and it carries little weight in an Indian criminal court. The DGMA can help on the compensation side, but it has no role in the criminal process.
So the only criminal case that can begin is the one the family begins. Most families never do. They do not know that they can. They are told the matter is settled. And while receiving the insurance money, which they were entitled to in any event under the collective agreement and the Convention, they are asked to sign a blanket indemnity described as a “full and final settlement”. Once that is signed, the company treats the death as closed.
The law gives families more than they are told. A complaint can be lodged at the local police station in India under section 173(1) of the BNSS, wherever the death occurred. Under section 1(5) of the BNS, Indian criminal law reaches an act committed outside India by a citizen of India. Once an FIR is registered, the police can collect documents, photographs and company records, and can record the statements of the Indian crew who return home.
It can be done. In a recent matter, an FIR was registered against a ship management company for criminal negligence and a blatant breach of safety precautions for commercial gain, which cost a young seafarer his life. It took about two and a half months of persistence to get there. The investigation is continuing, and no court has yet made any finding. But the case shows that the door is open to families who knock on it.
The message for every seafarer’s family is simple. Report the death. Take the money that is owed to you, sign a plain receipt for it, and do not sign away anything else.
Four reforms would close most of these gaps.
Compensation pays a debt. Accountability answers for a death. Seafarers and their families are entitled to both.
The DGMA and ISWAN services are free, independent services and are not connected with this firm.
This note is for general information only and is not legal advice. Every case turns on its own facts, and no lawyer-client relationship arises from it. Readers should take advice on their own situation before acting.
For specific questions on a matter, rather than general commentary, please contact the firm directly.