On Monday, the Supreme Court asked the Delhi government to refrain from taking any coercive action against Rapido and Uber until a new policy was developed, thus staying the High Court judgement that effectively permitted bike-taxi aggregators to operate in the national capital.
The two aggregators were given permission by a vacationing bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Rajesh Bindal to ask the Delhi High Court to hear their cases immediately.
The bench that overturned the Delhi High Court’s ruling from May 26 took note of the Delhi government counsel’s argument that the final policy will be announced before the end of July.
The AAP administration was contesting the High Court’s ruling that no coercive action should be taken against the bike-taxi aggregators until the final policy was issued in two separate cases that were being heard by the Supreme Court.
The top court had asked the Centre to respond to the Delhi government’s arguments last week.
Senior attorney Manish Vashisht had claimed that the high court’s decision to postpone the government’s notice till the final policy is announced amounted to a virtual approval of Rapido’s writ suit.
On May 26, the high court ordered that no coercive action should be taken against the bike-taxi aggregator until the final policy was declared in response to Rapido’s petition contesting a statute that prohibits two-wheelers from being registered as transport vehicles.
The high court said in its listing of Rapido’s plea before the registrar for completion of pleading on August 22 that “The counsel for the petitioners (Rapido) submits that policy is under active consideration.”
“In light of this, we thus stay the notice and specify that the stay will be in effect until the final policy is announced. The petitioners are free to file action before the proper venue, the high court said, if they are still unhappy when the final policy is announced.
The Delhi government order directing Rapido to immediately stop operating non-transport two-wheelers from carrying passengers on a hire-and-reward basis or for commercial purposes, according to Roppen Transportation Services Private Limited’s petition before the high court, was passed without any justification or rationale.
The government had issued a public notice earlier this year cautioning bike-taxis against operating in Delhi and announcing that violators might face fines of up to Rs 1 lakh.
Rapido has also contested a show-cause notice that the municipal administration issued to it in that regard, claiming that it violates a number of basic and constitutional rights as well as the idea of natural justice.
“The direction issued by the transport department under the impugned notice is ex-facie arbitrary and passed without following due process under law, without providing any reasons for such prohibition,” the plea said.
As stated in the Motor Vehicles Act, read with the Motor Vehicle Aggregator Guidelines, 2020 (MoRTH Guidelines), the municipal government’s actions were against the objective and purpose of the Centre with regard to the issuing of licences to aggregators.
“The transportation department has not yet established its own rules on the use of two-wheelers that are not intended for transportation as transportation vehicles for the purposes of aggregation and ride-sharing/ride-pooling.
The plea stated that “MoRTH Guidelines expressly permitted vehicle pooling in non-transport vehicles in furtherance of the central and state governments’ objective of reducing traffic congestion and automobile pollution and achieving effective asset utilisation.”
Additionally, it said that a total prohibition on the petitioner’s services would negatively affect the lives and means of support for a sizable number of everyday commuters, car owners, and passengers.
