15Inspectors

(1) The Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint such employees of the Board, as the Government thinks fit, to be Inspectors for the purposes of this Act and the Scheme, and may define their jurisdiction.

(2) Every Inspector appointed under sub-section (1) may, for the purpose of inquiring into the correctness of any information furnished in connection with this Act or the Scheme or for the purpose of ascertaining whether any of the provisions of this Act or of the Scheme have been complied with--

(a) require an employer to furnish such information as he may consider necessary in relation to the Scheme;

(b) at any reasonable time and with such assistance, if any, as he may think fit, enter any office or board any ship, search the same and require any one found in charge thereof to produce before him for examination any accounts, books, registers and other documents in relation to the employment of seamen or the payment of wages to seamen;

(c) examine, with respect to any matter relevant to any of the purposes aforesaid, the employer, his agent or servant or any other person found in charge of the office or the ship or whom the Inspector has reasonable cause to believe to be, or to have been, an employee in the office or on the ship;

(d) make copies of, or take extracts from, any book, register or other document maintained in connection with the Fund and, where he has reason to believe that any offence under this Act has been committed by an employer, seize with such assistance as he may think fit such book, register or other document or portions thereof as he may consider relevant in respect of that offence;

(e) exercise such other powers as the Scheme may provide.

¹ [(3) The provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974) shall, as far as may be, apply to any search or seizure under sub-section (2) as they apply to any search or seizure made under the authority of a warrant issued under section 94 of the said Code.]

(4) Every Inspector shall be deemed to be a public servant within the meaning of section 21 of the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860).