The Karnataka High Court has held that bike taxi aggregators cannot function in the state unless a government notification of appropriate guidelines under Section 3 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 is given and has ordered that all bike taxi services must be stopped by the state government and transport department within six weeks.
Justice B. M. Shyam Prasad directed petitioners such as Rapido, Uber, and Ola to halt their services within a certain time frame. The state government is given three months to formulate guidelines and regulations for bike taxi services. The transport department won't be in a position to register motorbikes as transport vehicles or issue contract carriage permits until government policies are drafted.
Rapido, the bike taxi platform, has been directed by the Hon'ble High Court of Karnataka to close down within six weeks, and the State Transport Department has been asked not to take any step that could prejudice the position.
Rapido is worried about lakhs of bike-taxi captains who have been onboarded on the platform and intend to seek legal recourse once the order in detail is provided.
During the hearings, Senior Advocate Arun Kumar, who was representing one of the parties, pointed out that Ola only started providing bike taxi services in April 2024. The court recognized this but insisted that all petitioners should abide by the directive and shut down their bike taxi businesses.
The court also quoted a 2019 report of an expert committee that studied the impact on traffic and safety of bike taxis. The court emphasized that clarity in regulation is necessary before granting such services the go-ahead to continue.
Rapido, an app-based bike taxi service, started operating in Karnataka in 2016 on the grounds that there was a need for quick and affordable transportation. However, the state Transport Department stated these operations as illegal, adding that two-wheelers bearing white number plates cannot be utilized for commercial purposes.
This led to a number of crackdowns, including the seizure of over 200 two-wheelers in February 2019 and another 120 in January 2022. Rapido then made a plea before the Karnataka High Court to order two-wheelers to be allowed to be registered as transport vehicles and issue permits under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.