Delhi High Court seeks Central government response to plea by wife of Indian seaman missing from dark fleet ship

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Central government on a plea to direct the Indian government authorities to conduct a search at the Russian port of Vysotsk and locate Vikram Patel who had gone missing onboard a ship carrying Russian oil to India and Turkey.

Justice Subramonium Prasad directed the government to file its reply within four weeks and listed the case for further consideration on February 2, 2024.

Vikram Patel (42) was aboard a ship that was sailing from Ust-Luga Anch, Russia to Mersin, Turkey.

According to Lloyd's List, a ship is considered part of dark fleet ship if it is anonymously owned and/or has a corporate structure designed to obfuscate beneficial ownership discovery and solely deployed in sanctioned oil trades.

Patel is stated to have gone missing around August 10.

The missing seaman’s wife, Kamala Patel, has approached the High Court stating that she received a call on August 11, 2023, from her husband's employers informing her that he had gone missing. She was told that Patel was last seen by his colleagues on August 10.

“Further, Oceanonesm (company employing Patel) provided the wife with contact details of Captain Jagdeep Kahlon for seeking further information regarding search operations. At this stage, the Petitioner and her family members immediately reached out to Captain Jagdeep on numerous occasions by way of phone call which included phone calls on 11.08.2023, 12.08.2023, 13.08.2023 and 14.08.2023 till today. However, shockingly, on all such occasions she received self-defeating, conflicting, and contrary information. The family wrote multiple emails to the company to get an update. Since, there was no reliable update from the company,” the Court was told.

The petitioner was also informed by the Indian government that the Danish authorities were investigating the incident and that they would soon receive a report.

However, she has received no reply till date. The petitioner (Patel's wife) and her family have been running from pillar to post but have not found any information regarding the search for Vikram Patel, the Court was told.

She, therefore, has urged the Court to direct the Indian government to oversee the search operations and conduct a transparent search.

The petition was filed through advocates Tanvi Dubey and Anukrit Gupta.