Advocate-General told the bench that only eight States have so far permitted bike taxis across the country

The State government on Friday told the High Court of Karnataka that it has taken a policy decision not to frame rules and guidelines to allow bike taxi services through the platforms of transport technology aggregators like Ola, Uber and Rapido.

This submission was made by the State Advocate General before a division bench comprising acting Chief Justice V. Kameswar Rao and Justice Sreenivas Harish Kumar during a hearing on the appeals filed by Uber India Systems Pvt. Ltd., ANI Technology Pvt. Ltd, which operates Ola services, and Varikruti Mahendra Reddy and others, who are offering two-wheelers for bike taxi services through Ola, Uber and Rapido.

Only eight States
“As a policy, we do not want to frame rules for the operation of bike taxis,” A-G Shashi Kiran Shetty told the bench while pointing out that only eight States have so far permitted bike taxis across the country.

The appellants have challenged April 2 judgement of a single judge, which had declared that “unless the State government notifies relevant guidelines under Section 93 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, and Rules thereunder, the petitioners cannot operate as aggregators offering bike-taxi services and the Transport Department cannot be issued with directions to register motorcycles as transport vehicles or issue contract carriage permits.”

The single judge had given time till June 15 for Ola, Uber, and Rapido to cease all their operations as aggregators of bike-taxis while asking the State government to ensure that all bike-taxi operations are stopped after this deadline.

The bench declined to pass any interim order at this stage on the pleas of the appellants to either extend the deadline for the existing operation of bike-taxis on their platform for a short period or to direct the authorities not to take coercive steps till next of hearing.

Hearing on June 24
However, the bench said that it would hear the appeals on June 24 while pointing out that it would have considered passing an interim order if the government was delaying framing guidelines/rules, but in the present scenario the government was categorically stating that it has taken a policy decision not to frame guidelines/rules.

The appellants’ advocates contended that the existing rules allow registration of two-wheelers as taxis with yellow board and secure stage carriage permits to be used as passenger transport vehicles under the MV Act and the Rules, while pointing out that several persons are depending on bike taxis for their livelihood. Licences provided to operate taxi services under the Karnataka On Demand Transport Technology Aggregators Rules, 2016, is sufficient to operate bike taxis, it was argued on behalf of owner of motorcycles.

The bench said that it would consider all the issues and adjourned further hearing till June 24 while insisting that the appellants and the government should not take adjournment on that day.