Naval Armaments Act, 1923

The Naval Armament Act, 1923 was passed to let Pakistan give legal effect to an international treaty limiting naval armaments — originally the 1922 Washington treaty, later updated by amendment to the 1936 London Treaty for the Limitation of Naval Armament. In plain terms, it controls who is allowed to build, arm, or equip warships in the country.

Section 3 is the core prohibition: no one may build a vessel of war, or convert an ordinary ship into one, or send such a ship out of Pakistan, except under a licence. Section 4 explains how that licence works — the Federal Government grants it and can only refuse it if refusal is necessary to keep Pakistan's obligations under the Treaty; anyone already working on a vessel of war under an earlier licence must supply the government with designs and details on demand.

Section 5 sets out the penalty for breaking these rules: imprisonment up to two years, or a fine up to one thousand rupees, or both, and if a company is at fault, its directors and managers are personally liable unless they prove they didn't know about it. Sections 6 through 11 deal with enforcement — a ship built or armed in violation of the Act can be seized, detained, and eventually forfeited to the government through a court process (Sections 6–9), and a master who takes a seized ship out to sea anyway faces further fines (Section 11).

Sections 12 and 13 give inspecting officers the power to enter dockyards and search ships, and require that any prosecution go through at least a Magistrate of the first class and be authorised by the Federal Government. Section 14 protects officials from being sued for actions taken in good faith under the Act.

This is a very old law from 1923, heavily amended over the decades (the extract shows several "Subs. by", "Ins. by", and "Omitted" footnotes updating terms like "Federal Government" and referencing later ordinances), and its attached Schedule has since been repealed. Given its age and amendment history, anyone relying on it for current shipbuilding regulation should check the present official text rather than assume these provisions are unchanged.