law: Indian Ports Act, 1908
  31. Moving of vessels without pilot or permission of
  
  harbor master 
  (1) No vessel of the measurement of two hundred tons or upwards
  
  shall enter, leave or be moved in any port to which this section has been
  
  especially extended without having a pilot, harbor-master or assistant of the
  
  port-officer or harbor-master on board.
   31  [and no mechanically propelled vessel of any measurement
  
  less than two hundred tons and no other vessel of any measurement legs than two
  
  hundred tons and exceeding one hundred tons] shall enter, leave or be moved in
  
  any such port without having a pilot, harbor-master or assistant of the port
  
  officer or harbor-master on board, unless authority in writing so to do has been
  
  obtained from the conservator or some officer empowered by him to give such
  
  authority.
   32  [Provided that the 33[Government] may,
  
  by notification in the Official Gazette, direct that in any port specified in
  
  such notification the provisions of this sub-section shall not apply to sailing
  
  vessels of any measurement not exceeding a measurement go specified].
   34  [(2) Notwithstanding anything in sub-section (1), the
  
  owner or master of a vessel which is by that sub-section required to have a
  
  pilot, harbor-master or assistant of the port-officer or harbormaster on board,
  
  shall be answerable for any loss or damage caused by the vessel or by any fault
  
  of the navigation of the vessel, in the same manner as he would have been if he
  
  had not been go required by that sub-section:
  Provided  that the provisions of this sub-section shall
  
  not take effect till the first day of January, 1918, or such earlier date as
  
  the Central Government may notify in that behalf in the Official Gazette.]
   35  [(3)] If any vessel, except in case of urgent necessity,
  
  enters, leaves or is moved in the port contrary to the provisions of subsection
  
  (1), the master of the vessel shall for every such offence be punishable with
  
  fine which may extend to two hundred rupees, unless upon application to the
  
  proper officer the master was unable to procure a pilot, harbor-master or
  
  assistant of the port-officer or harbor-master to go on board the vessel.