Karnataka Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy asks authorities to enforce High Court’s bike taxi ban

A transport official stated that, “We will comply with the High Court order and necessary action will be taken after the six-week period, i.e. May 14”.

On April 2, Justice Shyam Prasad ordered to stop bike taxi operations including Rapido, Uber and Ola within six weeks. The High Court ruled that bike taxis cannot operate in the state unless the government notifies relevant guidelines under Section 93 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, along with the necessary rules.

The High Court ruling came as a huge blow to bike taxi aggregator giant Rapido which claimed that there are about 120,000 bike taxi riders in the city.

Earlier, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), a not-for-profit industry body representing the digital services industry, had urged the Karnataka government to ‘urgently’ form a joint committee to formulate bike taxi guidelines. IAMAI, in a letter to Dr Prasad, has expressed the pressing need for creating and enabling a regulatory framework for bike taxis to protect the livelihoods and earning opportunities of lakhs of riders in the state.

While the court issued a stinging rebuke to aggregator apps, Justice Shyam Prasad also observed that the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (MV Act), permits motorcycles to be registered as transport vehicles and issued contract carriage permits, dismissing the state’s claim that their legal definition precludes such use. The judge also noted that despite lacking a “crystallized right” under the law, these aggregators had exploited interim orders since 2021 to run bike-taxis, a practice the state argued flouted the “no permit, no plying” principle upheld by the Supreme Court.