This is for the first time that a foreign insurance company has been pulled up by the judiciary for its failure to discharge its obligations in India, legal experts say.

Justice M S Rane, in his judgment delivered recently, found that Abhay Ocean Project Ltd, hired by Osprey and Allied Marine to clear the wreck, had neither the financial capacity nor professional ability to execute the task.

What has emerged from the court order is that although Osprey, Allied Marine and Abhay Ocean were shown as different concerns -- in reality all had a common interest and link in captain David Birley, who represented Osprey International in India. Birley was a senior partner inAllied Marine Consultants International and also a director on the board of M/s Abhay Ocean Project. The court also found that Abhay Ocean was untraceable at the addresses mentioned in Tardeo and Andheri areas of the metropolis. ``It is too much to say that Osprey and their agents, Allied Marine, were unaware about such status of Abhay Ocean. It is indeed strange for an insurance company like Osprey to plead and contend that ONGC and Mumbai Port Trust should go running after such a company whose financial status and professional capability is doubtful and questionable and whose whereabouts are to be traced,'' the judge observed.

MV Sindu V11, an ONGC supply vessel, while manoeuvring in Mumbai high on May 24, 1995, met with an accident and sank the next day in the precincts of the Mumbai Port Trust.

Osprey Underwriting Agencies Ltd, set up under the laws of London and represented in India by Marine Consultants International, as insurer-indemnifiers, were under obligation to undertake salvage operations ofthe vessel and indemnify ONGC against any claim for removal of the wreck. Abhay Ocean filed a suit against the vessel, Osprey and Allied Marine on April 24, 1996. However it was disposed of the very next day before the suit could be numbered on the basis of the consent terms filed therein between the parties. The judge further observed, ``It is preposterous on the part of the insurance company to come out with such untenable and unbecoming stance which only smacks of an attempt to shirk the contractual obligations."