SC refuses to grant relief to Rapido against Maharashtra ban on bike aggregators

The SC has asked Rapido to move Hight Court on the Maharashtra government’s ban on company motorcycle taxis.

On January 13, the Bombay High Court pulled up Rapido for operating without procuring a licence from the Maharashtra government and directed it to suspend the services immediately. The company had moved the Supreme Court against the HC order.

As per a government resolution (GR) issued on January 19, non-transport vehicles including two-wheelers, three-wheelers and four-wheelers are banned (for the ride pooling and aggregation) “in order to ensure road safety of the general public and passengers at large”.

Currently, a few aggregators provide app-based bike, auto and car taxi services in major cities of Maharashtra. Some of them provide mobile application-based aggregator service using vehicles, especially two-wheelers, registered under the non-transport category.

Non-transport vehicles are ones with white number plates and are not allowed to be used for commercial purposes.

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The GR said the use of non-transport vehicles as transport vehicles (commercial vehicles) is on the rise enormously, which “raises serious practical and security concerns of the passengers and “may cause serious threat to the road safety of the general public and passengers”.The government also expressed concerns about plying of non-transport vehicles registered outside Maharashtra affecting the economic viability of the vehicles operating on valid permits in the state.

“The number of vehicles registered in the non-transport category is very large, therefore the non-transport vehicles registered outside the state of Maharashtra may also be used for vehicle aggregation and may affect the economic viability of the vehicles operating on valid permits in the State of Maharashtra,” the GR reads.

Referring to the state government’s notification of Thursday (January 19), a Rapido spokesperson said that this could adversely impact livelihoods and opportunities of over 200,000 bike captains.

Besides, the company claimed the ‘arbitrary decision’ will deprive millions of citizens from availing a reliable and efficient mode of local transport, and throw them at the mercy of poor transport facilities and lack of urban infrastructure which doesn’t provide a low-cost last-mile connectivity.

Providing statistics, the 7-year-old Rapido said that there are over 200,000 bike captains and 120,000 auto-rickshaw captains in Maharashtra who cater to around 22,00,000 customers daily through nearly 87,000 rides, presently operating in Mumbai and Pune.