HC seeks suggestion from govt, petitioner

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday directed the petitioner and State government to give suggestions, if any, to cab aggregators like Uber and Ola regarding possible deficiencies existing in the grievance redressal mechanism of the companies.

A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice MS Karnik has also asked the cab aggregators to comply, within two months, with the statutory guidelines as contained in the guidelines issued in 2020 by the Central govt extending to states.

The HC was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by advocate Savina Crasto highlighting the lack of an effective grievance redressal mechanism for customers using the Uber India app.

On Tuesday, Crasto said that the government has filed a compliance report, but it doesn’t mention the grievance redressal mechanism. Also, it doesn’t mention how the provisional licenses are issued, and what the state is going to do about their own guidelines, or how the conditions will be checked.

The government had filed a compliance report on Monday stating that out of 29 applications, 12 are allowed and 17 are under consideration.

To this, Chief Justice Datta 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? We will keep this in June. Till then let us see how they comply with the conditions. What is the provision for suspension?”

Counsel for the Central government RV Gowilkar said that the Centre cannot issue guidelines for individual mechanisms as the riders may have grievances which are not classified by the company. Experiences are limited or controlled by licensees, he said.

The HC has kept the PIL for hearing on June 20.

Full report on www.freepressjournal.in