Karnataka High Court directs Rapido, Ola, and Uber to stop bike taxi services within six weeks

It also says bike taxi services cannot be permitted unless the State government frames relevant guidelines under Motor Vehicles Act

In a major setback for transport technology aggregators, the High Court of Karnataka on Wednesday directed Rapido, Ola, and Uber to stop operating their bike taxi services within six weeks.

The court clarified that unless the State government notifies the relevant guidelines under Section 93 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, and the relevant rules framed under this provision, Rapido, Ola, and Uber cannot function as bike taxi aggregators.

Cannot give direction

The court also said it cannot direct the State government or the Transport Department to register motorcycles as “transport vehicles” and issue them contract carriage permits so that Rapido, Ola, and Uber can operate bike taxi services.

Justice B.M. Shyam Prasad passed the order while disposing of petitions filed by Uber India Systems Pvt. Ltd., Roppen Transportation Services Pvt. Ltd., which operates Rapido services, and ANI Technology Pvt. Ltd, which operates Ola services.

Govt. can take action

While giving six weeks to the petitioners to withdraw the bike taxi services, the court said the government can take action to ensure that no bike taxi services are offered on the online platform after six weeks. While reading out the operative portion of the judgement, the judge said that copy of the detailed order would be released on April 3.

The court has accepted the government’s contention that the plea for the petitioner to operate bike taxies cannot be considered under the Karnataka On-Demand Transportation Technology Aggregator Rules 2016, which is applicable only to grant licences to run four-wheeler vehicles as taxi service on technology aggregator platforms, and this rule is not applicable to grant licences for operating bike taxi service through platform of the petitioners.

Environment-friendly?

While stating that the Karnataka Electric Bike Taxi Scheme, 2021, was introduced in July 2021 to facilitate environment-friendly, last-mile connectivity solutions and also to ease traffic congestion, the government had told the court that the petitioner-aggregators are at liberty to file applications in the prescribed form before the appropriate authority for grant of licence to operate the electric bike taxis in the urban areas of the State.

The government had also told the court that a committee, set up in 2021 to examine the operation of bike taxis, had recommended against introducing bike taxis in the city while pointing out that it is not an environment-friendly scheme and bike taxis will increase traffic jams in the city with the increase in number of two-wheelers on the road besides creating additional parking problem.

Published - April 02, 2025 08:43 pm IST