Bombay High Court rejects plea by Rapido seeking bike taxi license

The Bombay High Court on Friday rejected a petition filed by bike taxi aggregator company, Rapido against the State government's refusal to grant two-wheeler bike taxi aggregator license to the company [Roppen Transportation Services Pvt Ltd & Anr. v. State of Maharashtra & Ors.]..A division bench of Justices GS Patel and SG Dige said that the petition was without merits since the company could not prove that its plea for license was rejected by the government only on the ground that there was no policy in the State to regulate bike taxis..“We are not satisfied that only for want of a policy, the license was rejected. We see no merit in the petition. We reject the petition. There will be no order as to cost,” the court observed in its order. “It is also not correct in our view, having seen impugned order, to say that rejection was solely for want of bike or taxi guidelines. They were by no means the only factors, there were other discrepancies in the application. The impugned order has to be read with preceding observations and noting,” the Court added..Rapido had approached the High Court after the RTO, Pune had passed an order rejecting its application to operate two and three wheeler aggregator services in Pune. Senior Advocate Aspi Chinoy, appearing for Rapido, claimed that the only ground for rejecting the application was that there were no guidelines put in place by the State to govern bike taxi aggregators..During the hearing today, Advocate General Birendra Saraf, appearing for State, informed the Court that the State had issued a notification on January 19 on the issue of aggregators. The notification expressly prohibits the use of non-transport vehicles including two, three and four wheelers for the purpose of aggregation. This decision of the State had been taken after a committee set up by the State conducted a study for giving recommendations on guidelines for aggregators. The committee recommended that it was important to prohibit pooling of non-transport vehicles by aggregators to ensure road safety of public and passengers..Saraf said that the RTO Pune order included that the reason for rejection was also non-compliance with requirements necessary for the authority to grant license. He also added that the State is not obligated to grant a license and it has to be satisfied with regard to compliances by the company. He emphasized that Rapido had been operating all their vehicle taxis (two, three and four wheeler) without any license..Chinoy rebutted that since there were no guidelines in existence, hence it could not comply. The Court did not agree with Rapido’s submission. “On the one hand, they say rejection is bad as there are no guidelines, but on the other hand they say guidelines do not provide it, when told there is non-compliance,” the Court remarked.After hearing both sides, the Court failed to see how Rapido could be allowed to operate without any license. “We are unable to see, how any aggregator like Roppen (Rapido) can lay claim or allow to operate firstly without a license, and secondly without complete compliance that the aggregator requires” the Court concluded. .The Court also said that Rapido may amend its petition or challenge the notification separately. Rapido, however, stated that it would do so in a separate petition later and asked the Court to decide its petition on the limited issue of challenge to RTO Pune’s rejection. It requested the High Court to consider its petition only on the aspect of the RTO Pune rejection.The Court, however, declined to entertain the plea..The company had earlier made a statement before the High Court on January 13 that it will suspend all its services in Maharashtra till January 20.The order was challenged before the Supreme Court which is slated to be heard on January 23, Monday.