Umamageswari Maruthappan
A petition against the transport giant, Uber India was filed before the Bombay High Court seeking directions to regulate the services of Uber and mandate it to comply with the statutory requirements of the relevant Indian Laws.
Advocate Savina R Castro invoked articles 14 mad 19 of the Indian Constitution along with the Motor Vehicles Aggregators Guidelines 2020 to call the Court’s attention with regards to this matter.
The main allegations were the egregious travel experience of the petitioner and also the lack of grievance redressal medium through which customers can comment about their travel incidents. The PIL seeks a guideline on this behalf from the Central and the State Government.
The Bombay HC Bench comprising Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice GS Kulkarni, after having heard the matter on 27th January 2021, had asked the State and Centre’s response with regards to the contentions of the petitioner. The matter has been adjourned to 10th February 2021 for the next hearing.
Uber Technologies Inc. is one of the most prominent and unignorable transport services on which more than 70% of the population including the petitioner, are highly dependent. This is the intense reason why Adv. Savina decided to move the plea.
At present, it is alleged that the company is not following any prescribed guidelines, and neither it has any grievance cells for customer review nor does it seem to acknowledge their interest and rights.
The petitioner has also contended that the company is prejudiced in treating their customers. “Uber does not treat the citizens of this country at par with the others in developed nations and care less about them,” the plea stated.
The petition made the following request before the High Court:
- To direct Uber to comply with the statutory obligations in its letter and spirit and to bound by the terms and conditions in Advisory for licensing, compliance and liability of On-demand Information Technology based Transportation Aggregator [Taxis (4+1)].
- To direct the Union and the State government to implement the guidelines laid down in the Motor Vehicle Aggregators Guidelines, 2020.
- Direct the State government to issue an order to Uber to add their complete details on the mobile app with no embargo on the length of the complaint and to resolve customer grievances in a time bound manner.
- To declare the company’s action as illegal.