Hearing date for Ola, Uber license permits postponed to June 18

The SAT has asked the RTO to provide its input in the case of Uber. In Ola’s case, the RTO had already submitted its stance on April 20.

After both aggregator companies had approached the SAT to appeal their applications being rejected, the tribunal set April 22 as the hearing date and asked the RTO to present its reviews.

RTO official Sanjeev Bhor said it had been asked to present its say two days before the hearing date, but now the new date has been announced by the SAT.

After licenses of both companies were rejected, the firms were given a 30-day window to apply to a higher authority, Bhor said. According to the central government’s Motor Vehicles Aggregators’ (MVA) guidelines, any aggregator aggrieved by an order passed by a competent authority may appeal to the state government or any such agency notified by the state government within 30 days of receiving the order.

On March 11, a meeting had been chaired by District Collector Suhas Diwase in the presence of other transport officials. After this, the RTO issued an official letter rejecting the applications of ANI Technologies Pvt Ltd (parent company of Ola) and Uber India Systems Pvt Ltd.

All the transport authorities reviewed the meeting and concluded that the documents of both companies do not comply with the required norms formulated by the MVA guidelines.

In January, The RTA had announced a revised fare for taxis following consistent agitations by driver unions and gig workers. The RTA had increased fares of air-conditioned taxis by Rs 37 for the first one and a half km and Rs 25 for every km thereafter. However, Ola and Uber are yet to implemen it.

Many meetings were held between driver unions and company representatives in the presence of transport officials, but no solution was found. Finally, the district collector took the step of rejecting the license applications of these companies and asked the RTO to implement the order.