High Court has ordered bike-taxi operators to stop operations within 6 weeks. The court also directed the state government to prepare guidelines in this regard.
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Karnataka High Court on Wednesday directed companies providing app-based taxi services to stop bike-taxi services in the state. The court said that these companies should stop their services within 6 weeks. The court said that bike-taxi cannot run until the state government notifies appropriate guidelines under the Motor Vehicles Act. A single bench of Justice BM Shyam Prasad directed the state government to ensure that the operation of bike-taxi is stopped within the stipulated time.
Companies had knocked the door of the court
Actually, companies like Ola, Uber and Rapido, which provide bike taxi service, had knocked the door of the High Court. These companies had demanded the court to direct the state government to prepare a policy for running bike-taxi. In the petitions, the companies had demanded the issuance of aggregator licenses and registration of bike-taxis as transport services. Now the High Court has ordered the bike-taxi operators to stop operations within 6 weeks. Also, the court directed the state government to prepare guidelines in this regard. Justice Shyam Prasad clarified that the court cannot direct the state government to make rules. Nor can the court order the registration of non-transport vehicles as transport vehicles.
Case going on since 2021
The Karnataka government had issued an order banning bike taxi services on 14 July 2021. Taxi service providers companies had filed a petition in the High Court against this. After this, the court had temporarily stopped the government from taking action on these platforms. This relief given by the court continues till date, due to which Rapido continues to operate bike taxis.
