Bombay High Court (File) The Bombay High Court on Monday directed cab aggregators including Uber India to apply by March 16 for licence to ply cabs under the Motor Vehicles Aggregators Guidelines, 2020 framed by the Union government.
The court asked the state authorities to decide the application within 15 days from the date of receipt. The bench said that the Centre’s rules will be applicable till the Maharashtra Regulation of Aggregator Rules, 2021, which is pending approval, comes into effect.
“We are keen to observe that despite such amended versions of statutory provisions brought into force in 2019 and guidelines framed in 2020 (by the Centre), the state government permitted aggregators to operate in Maharashtra without insisting on compliance of statutory regulations,” the high court noted in the order.
“How are they (operators) plying without a licence? That is complete lawlessness… These officers have turned a blind eye and are not seeing whether operators have licences? That is why we are facing so many problems,” the bench orally remarked.
The bench, in view of “public interest”, however, did not restrain the aggregators from plying the cabs till the process of issuing licence is complied with. It observed in the order, “We are conscious that making an order restraining the aggregators that have not yet obtained licence would operate to prejudice and detriment of passengers who avail of these services provided by such aggregators” and added that if an aggregator agrees to comply with the guidelines, the issuance of licence cannot be delayed.
The court said that the government should issue notification by March 9 empowering all Regional Transport Authorities (RTAs) in Maharashtra as licencing authorities and added that the Maharashtra Accidents Claims Tribunal (MACT) could function as the appellate authority. “If application is rejected, such an aggregator shall not be permitted to carry on further activities in Maharashtra,” the high court noted.
A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Vinay G Joshi was hearing a PIL filed by city-based advocate Savina Crasto, who had raised grievances regarding the “complex and ineffective” redressal mechanism provided by an app-based cab aggregator.
The state government had pointed out that the Maharashtra City Taxi Rules, a regulatory policy, was framed in 2017. After it was challenged in the high court, a status quo was ordered by the court and the same have been in abeyance since then.
The state in its affidavit had said that no application has been made by cab aggregator service Uber India to obtain licence and if such application is received before the 2021 state rules come into effect, the cab aggregators would be required to act in accordance with the rules of the Union government.
Senior advocate Janak Dwarkadas for Uber India submitted that the respondents in a meeting held on March 5, 2021, chaired by the joint secretary of the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, had raised objections to the guidelines and since there was no final decision on such objections, the respondent did not apply for licence under the 2020 guidelines.
The bench referred to the objections raised and noted that the aggregator had even objected to installing GPS devices and had said that it was a difficult task to check total working hours of drivers.
Chief Justice Datta also referred to a personal experience wherein his son saw an on-duty cab driver dozing off for two to three minutes. “Drivers are tired and they naturally doze off. Why is there no regulation on what aggregators do?” he remarked.
The bench observed in the order, “We are not impressed by such submissions advanced by respondents. Once it is a statutory mandate that no person shall engage himself as an aggregator unless licence is obtained, it could be inappropriate for the state government to allow such persons as aggregators. No doubt the rules are under consideration. But till such time they are finalized, guidelines by the central government would hold the feet and any person willing to be an aggregator must follow the same.”
“Instead of restraining aggregators including respondents, we grant the opportunity to all such aggregators to apply for licence…” it added.
The court will hear the PIL after four weeks.
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