The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined relief to the Rapido bike, taxi and auto aggregator, which challenged the Bombay High Court order directing the company to stop operation in Maharashtra immediately as it does not have a license to operate bike, taxi or rickshaw services.
A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala said that amendments made to the Motor Vehicles Act in 2019 made it clear that aggregators cannot operate without a valid licence.
The apex court granted the company liberty to move to the Bombay High Court to challenge January 19 notification issued by the State of Maharashtra.
It also asked the High Court to consider such challenge un-influenced.
In December 2022, the Pune RTO had rejected Rapido's plea for licence.
Earlier, the Bombay High Court had directed Roppen Transportation Services Private Limited, which operates bike taxi aggregator Rapido, to shut operations till January 20 as the startup is yet to receive a licence from the Maharashtra government to operate.
The Bombay High Court had pulled up Pune-based bike taxi aggregator for operating without procuring a licence from the Maharashtra government and directed it to suspend the services immediately.
Roppen Transportation had moved the High Court against a communication issued to it by the Maharashtra government refusing to grant them a bike taxi aggregator licence.
The government cited the reason that there was no state policy on licensing of bike taxis and there was no fare structure policy.
The State government had told the High Court that a committee has been set up to explore the formulation of guidelines for bike taxis in the state.
( With inputs from ANI )
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