HC wants city government’s response on challaned, confiscated Uber cabs

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday sought response from the city government on the plea of app-based taxi aggregator Uber claiming that several of their cabs

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday sought response from the city government on the plea of app-based taxi aggregator Uber claiming that several of their cabs were challaned or confiscated merely because they did not have calibrated meters.

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Justice Manmohan did not issue any interim order on Uber’s application seeking quashing of the challans of its cabs but sought the government’s response by September 6, the next date of hearing.

Uber also alleged that the government is taking the action at the behest of some of its competitors to “end our business”.

However, the Delhi government’s senior standing counsel Rahul Mehra said cabs running on Uber and Ola platforms cannot get “blanket immunity” for violating the law merely because a central panel was working on formulating a uniform policy to regulate such companies.

Justice Manmohan asked Mehra if the government could wait till the committee comes out with its report as the aggregators have cooperated earlier on the issue of surge pricing.

“The committee is looking into it… If you (government) have waited so long, wait for some more time till the committee comes with a solution in its report,” the court said.

The court on August 11 had set August 22 as the deadline after which taxi aggregators as well as cab operators cannot charge passengers more than the government-fixed rates.