Delhi Court to pass order on Ola, Uber plea tomorrow

New Delhi: A Delhi court on Saturday said that it would pronounce, on Monday, its order on a plea seeking prosecution of app-based cab service providers for allegedly violating the fare rules.

The matter would come up on July 31 as metropolitan magistrate Abhilash Malhotra, who was scheduled to pass the order today, is on leave. The court had earlier recorded pre-summoning evidence advanced by the complainant NGO, Nyaya Bhoomi, through its secretary Rakesh Agarwal, in support of the complaint. The court, however, had treated as “dismissed as withdrawn” an application filed by the same NGO seeking lodging of FIR against three app-based cab service providers — Ola, Uber, and Taxi for Sure — holding that the offences alleged in the plea under the Motor Vehicles (MV) Act were “non-cognisable.”It had allowed the complainant to lead the evidence in support of the complaint under the CrPC that these three cab companies were also allegedly violating permit conditions by running vehicles on diesel and providing point-to-point service in Delhi, violating Supreme Court orders. 

The NGO has sought recovery of a whopping Rs 91,000 crore from cab service providers for allegedly not adhering to rules relating to fares and not operating by fare meter. It had sought lodging of an FIR alleging that by providing taxi and auto rickshaw services, they were violating permit conditions, which amounted to committal of offence under the MV Act. The complaint was filed against ANI Technologies Pvt Ltd that runs Ola, Uber India Systems Pvt Ltd, and Serendipity Infolabs Pvt. Ltd that runs Taxi For Sure.