Karnataka High Court Today (April 2) ordered Rapido, Ola, and Uber to shut down their bike taxi services in the state within six weeks. The Court ruled it cannot force the government to legalize or regulate such services.
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BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court gave a strong decision against bike taxi services like Rapido, Ola, and Uber. On Wednesday, the Court clearly said that these bike taxi companies must stop their operations in Karnataka within six weeks.
This big decision was given by Justice B Shyam Prasad, who was looking into petitions filed by Ropeen Transportation Services Private Limited (the parent company of Rapido) and other taxi apps like Ola and Uber (by ANI Technologies). These companies had gone to court asking for permission to run bike taxis legally.
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The companies wanted the Court to allow them to register bikes (with petrol engines) as transport vehicles. They also asked the Court to tell the government to create proper rules or a legal system for running bike taxis.
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Rapido, which is already giving bike taxi rides to people, had also asked the Court to stop the government from “interfering with their business.”
Earlier in April 2022, a different judge, Justice Jyoti Milimani, gave temporary relief to these companies. At that time, the Court had said the government should not take any strict action against them. Because of that, Rapido and others were able to continue working in Karnataka until now.
Justice Prasad had started looking into the case in 2023. Now, in his final decision, he dismissed the petitions filed by these bike taxi companies. He made it clear that the High Court cannot force the State government to create new rules, and it also cannot ask the government to treat private bikes as transport vehicles.
The Court finally ordered that
“Bike taxi aggregators should stop all operations within six weeks.”
This judgment means that if no further legal action is taken by Rapido, Ola, or Uber, they will have to stop giving bike taxi rides to customers in Karnataka after six weeks.
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