[BREAKING] Supreme Court stays bike taxi operations of Rapido, Uber in Delhi

The Supreme Court on Monday stayed two decisions of the Delhi High Court that had directed the Delhi government not to take any coercive action against bike taxi aggregators Rapido and Uber till guidelines governing grant of licenses to such aggregators are notified. [Government of NCT of Delhi and Ors. vs Roppen Transportation Services Pvt Ltd and Ors.].By this order, a vacation bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Rajesh Bindal of the top court effectively stayed the operations of such bike taxis until the government notifies guidelines governing the same.The apex observed that given the fact that the Delhi government was in the process of formulating a policy for granting licenses to bike taxi aggregators, a complete stay by the High Court on the notification that prohibited their operation was unwarranted.Accordingly, the Court stayed the Delhi High Court orders and directed it to hear the challenge to the notification expeditiously.The Court also gave parties the liberty to file early hearing applications before the High Court."Under these circumstances, in our opinion, interim orders ought not to have been passed staying whole scale operation of a statutory regime till the finalisation of the policy ... We accordingly direct permanent stay on operation of the impugned orders passed by the Delhi High Court, which were interim in nature. The parties are given liberty to apply before the High Court for early hearing of the Writ Petitions," the Court said..The Delhi government, through Senior Advocate Manish Vashisht, contended that the aggregators were operating two-wheelers without proper licenses or permits, as required under Section 93 of the Motor Vehicles Act. It was argued that non-transport two-wheelers should not be used as taxis without a policy in place.The government further submitted that the policy would be in place and the licensing regime will become operational by July 31, 2023..Senior Advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul for Uber argued that the company had relied on notifications permitting two-wheelers to operate in many States since 2019. He emphasised that the government's failure to draft a policy should not lead to a ban on the existing 35,000 bike taxi operators.The issue of whether two-wheelers fit into the existing taxi aggregator policy was also raised. Uber argued that two-wheelers, except those with engine capacities of 25CC, should be allowed to operate as commercial vehicles based on a notification by the Central government..Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain, appearing for the Central government, said that the Centre's guidelines were issued to facilitate State governments so they can formulate a policy for licenses to aggregators."Licenses are a sine qua non, no doubt about it," he said..The Delhi High Court had last month ordered the Delhi government not to take any coercive action against bike taxi aggregators Rapido and Uber, and let them operate, till guidelines governing such aggregators are notified.This led to the present appeal.The issue arose after the Delhi government had issued a public notice in February stating that bike taxis are not allowed in the national capital.Further, two-wheelers having non-transport (private) registration indulging in purely commercial operations would be in violation of Motor Vehicles Act and rules made under the Act.The transport department had stated that app-based aggregators will have to stop their services immediately or they will face a challan of ₹1 lakh.Rapido then approached the High Court challenging the notices as well as the constitutional validity of the Delhi Motor Vehicle Rules.Earlier, the Maharashtra government had refused to grant Rapido a two-wheeler bike taxi aggregator license.The Bombay High Court had subsequently rejected Rapido's plea challenging the decision. The High Court order was challenged before the Supreme Court, which also refused relief to Rapido..Senior Advocate Sidharth Bhatnagar with advocate Anoop Bose appeared for Rapido.[Read order]