' The petitioners are companies engaged in the manufacture of goods in Pakistan. As part of their business, the petitioner-companies export goods from Pakistan and also, at times, import foreign goods. The respondents Nos. 2 to 18, other than respondent No,3, are the agents of foreign shipping lines engaged in the business of transporting cargo between Pakistani ports and ports in foreign countries. Respondent No,3 is a shipping line engaged in the transport of cargo to and from Pakistan.
2. The grievance of the petitioner companies is that the above-referred shipping lines acting collusively have imposed a war risk surcharge on containers that are carried by them from Pakistani ports to foreign destinations as also on the cargo carried by them to Pakistani ports.
According to the petitioners, the imposition of the war risk surcharge is a result of conspiracy and collusion between the above-referred shipping lines with the intention of profiteering at the expense of Pakistan's international trade in general and its exports in particular.
3. The petitioners are also aggrieved that the respondents and the Federation respondent No,1 have failed to comply with the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Ordinance, 2001 (the Ordinance) mad, in particular, sections 81, 82 and 83 thereof. The main relief sought in the petition is a direction to the Federation to perform its obligations in terms of the Ordinance. Relief has also been prayed for against the shipping lines including a prayer that the said shipping lines be prohibited from levying the war risk surcharge with the further prayer that they be directed to refund all amounts already collected by them by way of war risk surcharge from the petitioner- companies.
4. In order to appreciate the grievance of the petitioners, the relevant provisions of sections 81, 82 and 83 of the Ordinance are reproduced as under:--- "81. Duty to provide conference agreement.-The shipping operators in the coastal shipping who operate within the framework of a liner conference, shall provide the Federal Government with a copy of the liner conference agreement as soon as possible after it has been concluded or amended.
82. Power to disapprove conference agreement.---(1) The Federal Government may disapprove a liner conference agreement or clauses therein, if-- (a)
(b)
(c)
(d) the agreement provides for such high rates for the carrying out of the liner service as to seriously jeopardize the interests of the shippers.
(2) The Federal Government shall notify its decision in writing to the shipping operators and the representative shippers organizations involved stating the grounds for disapproval.
(3) If the Federal Government has disapproved the provisions of any agreement relating to freight rates or other transport conditions, the previous freight rates or conditions shall apply to the agreement.
83. Prohibition on compliance with disapproved agreement.---As soon as the Federal Government has notified disapproval of an agreement, or any part thereof, in accordance with subsection (2) of section 82, the parties shall not comply with the agreement or, as the case may be, the disapproved part thereof.
5. At the very outset, learned counsel representing respondent No,4 raised the plea (adopted also by learned counsel representing the other shipping lines) that the aforesaid provisions of the Ordinance were not applicable to foreign shipping lines which were not engaged in coastal shipping. According to learned counsel, foreign shipping lines which were transporting cargo from Pakistan destined for foreign ports or were bringing cargo into Pakistan from foreign ports, did not fall within the scope of the above-referred statutory provisions and, as such, the freight rates and other charges,, including the impugned war risk surcharge levied by them were not subject to regulation by the Federal Government.
6. It was argued by learned counsel for the respondent lines that the provisions of sections 81, 82 and 83 of the Ordinance were applicable only to shipping operators engaged in coastal shipping and not to foreign shipping lines transporting cargo to and from Pakistan. According to him, it was only where such coastal shipping operators chose to act within the framework of a liner conference that they were required to furnish a copy of their liner conference agreement to the Federal Government. He therefore, contended that sections 82 and 83 of the Ordinance being qualified by section 81 were also, therefore, only applicable to liner conference agreements relating to shipping operators engaged in coastal shipping.
7. The attention of the Court was also drawn to the fact that sections 81, 82 and 83 of the Ordinance were contained in Part III of the Ordinance, which bears the heading "Coastal Shipping". From this circumstance, learned counsel for the respondent lines drew support for their argument that only coastal shipping was intended to be regulated by the Federal Government through the provisions of sections 81, 82 and 83 of the Ordinance.
8. On the other hand, learned counsel for the petitioners contended that although the terms "coasting ship" and "coasting trade" had been defined in the Ordinance, the term "coastal shipping" had not been so defined. According to him, even the carriage of cargo to and from Pakistan could constitute coastal shipping because such carriage necessarily entailed the entry and exit of foreign ships into and from the coastal waters of Pakistan. He, too, relied on the heading of Part III of the Ordinance and argued that there were provisions in the said Part which clearly established that carriage of cargo to and from Pakistan was also envisaged in the term 'coastal shipping'. In particular, he referred to the provisions of section 76(2) and section 77 of the Ordinance. To understand this argument and for case of reference, sections 76 and 77 of the Ordinance are reproduced as under:- "76 International shipping operators.---(1) All Pakistani shipping operators and foreign shipping operators shall, subject to the provisions of section 79, be entitled to participate in the coastal shipping.
(2) The Federal Government may exclude or restrict operators from countries, to be specified in the official Gazette, to participate in the coastal shipping to, and from, Pakistan."
"77 Government Cargo.---The carriage of Government cargo between a foreign and Pakistani port and vice versa may be reserved for Pakistani shipping operators provided Pakistani ships operate from such ports."
9. It was argued by learned counsel for the petitioners that carriage of cargo between foreign and Pakistani ports had clearly been dealt with, both in section. 77 and in section 76(2) of the Ordinance. Since these provisions were included in Part III of the Ordinance headed "coastal shipping", the reference to coastal shipping in section 81 of the Ordinance should be interpreted broadly to cover all shipping, including international carriage of cargo.
10. The learned Attorney-General, who appeared on behalf of the Federation, sated that the Federal Government fully sympathized with the plight of the petitioners. According to him, the war risk surcharge imposed by foreign shipping lines on transport of cargo to and from Pakistan was exorbitant, arbitrary and unjust. The Federal Government was, therefore, lobbying within Pakistan and internationally against the said surcharge. However, he argued, the Federal Government had no control in the matter of freight rates and other charges levied by international shipping lines.
11. The learned Attorney-General also argued that chapter headings or even headings of individual sections in an Act or Ordinance had no bearing on the interpretation of a statute. The statute had to be construed in accordance with its wording and without regard to such chapter headings or section headings. On this basis, he argued that even though section 77 and section 76(2) of the Ordinance referred to international shipping and were contained in the part of the Ordinance dealing with coastal shipping, this would not, by itself, enlarge the meaning of the term "coastal shipping". The said term had to be defined in the light of its ordinary dictionary meaning if the statute had failed to define it.
12. It was also pointed out by him that while a voyage between Karachi Port and another port in Pakistan such as Gawadar or Port Qasim would clearly constitute, coastal shipping, it would be against the accepted use of language to refer to a voyage between Karachi and a foreign port such as New York as coastal shipping. According to him, the provisions of sections 76 and 77 of the Ordinance could have been contained in a separate chapter or even in the miscellaneous provisions of the Ordinance. The mere fact that these provisions appear in Part III relating to coastal shipping has no bearing on the interpretation of the said provisions.
13. From the above-noted arguments and indeed from the wording of section 81 of the Ordinance, it is evident that there is no dispute among the parties that the provisions of section 81 and, therefore, those of sections 82 and 83 of the Ordinance relate to coastal shipping. The only contention between the parties arises as to the meaning of the term "coastal shipping". While learned counsel for the petitioners would want the Court to construe the term broadly to include shipping of all types provided such shipping entails traversing of Pakistani waters, learned counsel for the respondents and the learned Attorney-General argue that the term "coastal shipping" should be limited to shipping which is exclusively confined to the coastal waters of Pakistan and to transport between Pakistani Ports.
14. The argument for a broad construction of the term "coastal shipping" was founded by learned counsel for the petitioners, firstly on the circumstances, as noted above, that Part III of the Ordinance dealing with coastal shipping included provisions such as sections 76 and 77. Since these provisions deal with international shipping and are placed in Part III of the Ordinance dealing with coastal shipping, the term "coastal shipping", according to him, encompassed international shipping also. This argument is wholly misconceived. It is, by now, well settled law (not disputed even by petitioners' learned counsel) that the provisions of a statute have to be construed without regard to chapter headings or section headings. As such, the inclusion of sections 76 and 77 in Part III of the Ordinance does not have any bearing on the interpretation of section 81 which has to be construed on the basis of its own wording.
15. It was next submitted by learned counsel for the petitioners that only international shipping lines, have liner conference agreements. On this basis also, it was argued that reference to such agreements in section 81 should be taken to mean that international shipping lines were subject to the provisions of section 81 of the Ordinance. This argument is also without force.
16. Firstly it is to be noted there is no warrant for such interpretation nor was any basis shown to substantiate the statement that only international shipping lines have liner conference agreements. Secondly, the possibility cannot be ruled out that at some future date shipping operators engaged in coastal shipping may decide to enter into liner conference agreements even if at the time of the promulgation of the Ordinance this was not the case. Furthermore, international shipping operators working within the framework of a liner conference could also become subject to section 81 if such international operators decide to engage in coastal shipping. In these circumstances, a reference to liner conference agreements in section 81, by itself, would not support the argument advanced by learned counsel for the petitioners.
17. Learned counsel for the respondents as also the learned Attorney-General referred to the definitions of "coasting ship" and "coasting trade" contained in section 2, subsections (5) and (6) of the Ordinance to argue that the term "coastal shipping" used by the Legislature in section 81 of the Ordinance should be construed with reference to these definitions. Subsections (5) and (6) of section 2 of the Ordinance are reproduced as under: "(5) 'coasting ship' means a ship which is exclusively employed in trading coastwise within ports or places in Pakistan or any marine areas specified in the Pakistan Territorial Waters and Maritime Zones Act, 1976 (LXXXII of 1976), or any other law for the time being in force and between such ports or places as the Federal Government, may, from time to time, notify;
(6) 'coasting trade' means the carriage by sea of passengers or goods between ports or places in areas specified in clause (5);"
18. The above defined terms do not by themselves help in defining the term "coastal shipping" because the word- used therein is "coasting" and not "coastal". In the circumstances an understanding of the common usage of the word "coastal", in the English language, is necessary.
The word "coastal" in relation to the word "shipping" has been used in section 81 as an adjective to define and qualify the word "shipping". If the word "coastal" had not been employed by the Legislature, the provisions of section 81 and, as a consequence, those of sections 82 and 83 would have been applicable to shipping of all types unqualified by any limitations. The Legislature, however, has consciously used the word "coastal" to refer to the type of shipping which is intended to be regulated in terms of sections 81, 82 and 83 of the Ordinance. The word "coastal" is derived from the word "coast", and as commonly understood, means a thing (shipping, in the present case) which relates to or is connected to the coast. Since the Ordinance, in its various provisions, deals with all types of shipping including international shipping and home trade shipping, the term "coastal shipping", in my opinion, can only mean such shipping as is confined to the coastal sea and the ports along the coast of Pakistan, as opposed to international shipping and home trade shipping. It is thus clear that only such shipping between Pakistani ports is intended to be covered under section 81 of the Ordinance. Any other meaning of the term, and in particular the meaning suggested by learned counsel for the petitioner, would be wholly inconsistent with the natural use of the English language in the given context of the Ordinance.
19. The argument that even international shipping between Pakistani and foreign ports, can be construed as coastal shipping because such shipping requires voyaging through Pakistani coastal waters, is not well-founded for another reason also. Any such construction would render the word "coastal" appearing in section 81, redundant. According to well-recognized principles of statutory interpretation, redundancy cannot be ascribed to the wording of an enactment unless there is a compelling necessity for doing so. In the present case I see no reason, and none was advanced by learned counsel for the petitioners to treat the word "coastal" appearing in section 81 of the Ordinance as redundant. On the contrary, the word has relevance, as discussed above, circumscribing the regulatory ambit of sections 81, 82 and 83 of the Ordinance and in defining the category of shipping which is intended to be governed by the said statutory provisions.
20. Considering the above discussion and arguments, I am left in no manner of doubt that the term "coastal shipping" (used in section 81) only encompasses shipping between Pakistani ports.
21. In these circumstances, I find that sections 81, 82 and 83 of the Ordinance are inapplicable to any international liner conference agreement to which the respondent shipping lines may be a party. As a result, the said shipping lines cannot be required by the Federal Government to provide to it a copy of their liner conference agreements, nor can the Federal Government be directed to act under sections 82 and 83 of the Ordinance in respect of any liner conference agreement to which the respondent shipping lines are a party as long as the said lines do not engage in coastal shipping.
22. Before parting with this judgment I need to note that certain objections were raised as to the merits and the maintainability of the present petition by learned counsel representing respondents Nos. 11, 13 and 16 in view of the relief claimed by the petitioners against respondents Nos. 2 to 18, and also on the basis that respondents Nos. 2 and 4 to 18 are merely agents of foreign shipping lines against whom no cause of action has been disclosed in the petition. However, in view of my findings above, I do not consider it necessary to give a decision on such objections.
23. In view of the above discussion this petition is dismissed.