Five-year-old court order saves Ola and Uber in Karnataka

Bengaluru: A five-year-old interim order by the Karnataka High Court has paved the best way for app-based ride-hailing companies Uber and Ola to stay operational in Bengaluru—considered one of their greatest markets in India—despite the fact that their licences have lapsed.

In 2016, the transport division had issued licences to the 2 cab aggregators for a five-year interval underneath the Karnataka On-demand Transportation Know-how Aggregator Guidelines, 2016. However on Dec. 7 that 12 months, a division bench of the excessive court docket had directed the transport division to not take any coercive motion underneath the brand new guidelines after Uber and others challenged them in court docket.

Whereas Ola’s licence to function as an app-based taxi aggregator expired in June, Uber’s expired final month. Each have utilized for renewal of their permits however the transport division has not processed their purposes. Officers mentioned that this was as a result of the businesses violated a number of the guidelines and didn’t comply with process when submitting their renewal purposes.

However due to the 2016 order, the federal government mentioned it can’t act towards the 2 companies. “The excessive court docket has directed the federal government to not take coercive motion towards cab aggregators. Their writ attraction difficult the aggregator guidelines remains to be pending,” Rajendra Kumar Kataria, principal secretary, transport division, instructed ET. “We’ve got sought authorized opinion on find out how to cope with purposes requesting renewal of licence,” he added. The division has now written to the federal government, in search of recommendation on this.

“The rules require an aggregator to use for renewal of licence 60 days earlier than its expiry. However each operators haven’t complied with this,” L. Hemantha Kumar, further commissioner, transport division, instructed ET final week.

In response to the division, Ola utilized for renewal on July 15, 2021, solely after it was issued a discover asking it to stop operations within the metropolis and report compliance. Uber, officers mentioned, utilized for renewal solely 4 days earlier than its licence expired.

An Uber spokesperson had earlier instructed ET that the corporate had utilized for a renewal final month and had acquired an acknowledgement for this.

Karnataka was among the many first states in India to attract up guidelines for app-based cab aggregators, which have all the time argued that they’re know-how platforms and never transport operators. The Karnataka Excessive Courtroom had dominated in favour of permitting the state to control such entities, whereas hanging down some clauses within the guidelines regarding information assortment by the state authorities.

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