Not within scope of court to dictate to cab aggregators on app features, says Bombay High Court

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The Bombay High Court on Tuesday said it was not within the scope of the court's powers to dictate to cab aggregators like Uber and Ola on features of its mobile application.

A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice M S Karnik said it was the legislature which was empowered to lay down guidelines to regulate cab aggregators.

The bench was hearing a petition filed by advocate Savina Crasto against transport aggregators, alleging the lack of a consumer grievance redressal mechanism to resolve complaints against Uber.

The Maharashtra government had, on Monday, told court it had granted provisional license to 12 aggregators, including Uber and Ola.
Crasto on Tuesday told the court the state government had still not specified or mentioned in its report if the condition while granting license included setting up of a grievance redressal mechanism.

Crasto sought the court's intervention to ensure that proper mechanisms are put in place.

Replying to this, the HC said, "The legislature has powers to issue guidelines. How can the courts do so? You want the app to have certain features, but can we do it?... The state is there to frame guidelines."

As per the government report, Ola, Uber and 10 other cab aggregators have been granted provisional aggregators licenses under the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act and the Motor Vehicle Aggregators Guidelines of 2020.

Appearing for Uber, senior advocate Janak Dwarkadas pointed out that a grievance redressal mechanism was available. He contended that as a company wanting to do better business, Uber did not fall back with contemporaries.

"We do not like to fall behind, we do not want Ola to have better business than Uber. That is not good for our business. There is a service available of the same nature," he told the court.

The court then said it would grant two months time to the state government to check if the aggregators are complying with conditions stipulated under the guidelines.

The state is expected to consider the experiences and the nature of complaints that are lodged with the aggregators to find deficiencies, if any, in the system, the bench said.

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