Rapido Moves SC After Bombay HC Orders Shutting Services In Maha

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (January 17) agreed to hear the appeal of mobility startup Rapido against the Bombay High Court order stopping it from operating bike taxis and auto-rickshaws in Maharashtra.

A bench headed by the Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud agreed to list the matter for January 23, after the case was mentioned before the bench. Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi mentioned the matter for urgent hearing and said the company has thousands of employees.

Last week, the Bombay HC ordered Rapido to immediately stop its operations in Maharashtra, as the startup does not have a taxi aggregator licence and operates illicitly in the state.

Incidentally, the order for the ride-hailing company to stop operations came during the hearing of a petition filed by Rapido against the Maharashtra government’s move to not grant taxi aggregator licences to online ride-hailing companies.

At the same time, the state HC rebuked the Maharashtra government for not framing a policy for taxi aggregators and asked to offer a clarification for that. However, the state government told the HC that since there was no state policy on licencing bike taxis, there was no proper fare structure either.

The Maharashtra government added that it has set up a committee to formulate the guidelines for bike taxis in the state.

Rapido moved the Bombay High Court after an FIR was filed against its founder Aravind Sanka and legal advisor Shantanu Sharma by the Maharashtra government and its transport body. 

According to an ANI report, the ride-hailing startup also moved the high court after it received a communication from the Maharashtra government on December 29, 2022, refusing to grant it a bike taxi aggregator licence.

While the Pune-based startup has a presence in 100 cities across India, it has faced much legal trouble recently across Maharashtra and Karnataka. In October 2022, the Karnataka High Court ordered Rapido, alongside Uber and Ola, to shut down auto-rickshaw aggregator services in the state after it was brought to the HC’s attention that the companies were charging more than the prescribed state rates for the rides.

As is the case with Maharashtra, Karnataka also did not have any norms for licencing auto-rickshaw aggregators or even bike taxi aggregators for that matter. Rapido is not the only bike taxi aggregator – Uber and Ola also offer similar services – but the startup has faced the brunt of the regulatory heat when it comes to bike taxis.