Supreme court orders Uber to get Maharashtra licence by March 31

The Supreme Court on Monday directed taxi-aggregator Uber India to apply for a new licence to operate in Maharashtra, including Mumbai and expressed concern that it had been operating for nearly a year on the basis of the court's interim order staying the Bombay High Court's order directing it to comply with central guidelines regulating aggregators.

A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala also attacked the Maharashtra government for failing to frame the Rules, which are to be governed by the 2020 central guidelines, producing uncertainty for tax aggregators such as Uber.

According to Uber counsel Dhruv Mehta, several of the guidelines' stipulations are impractical, such as its mandate to establish an office in each of the 50 Regional Transport Authority offices. According to Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, these rules are all related to passenger or taxi driver safety

On April 21, last year, the Supreme Court stayed a Bombay High Court ruling holding that, under the legislative requirement of Section 93 of the Motor Vehicles Act, as amended in 2019, no aggregator can operate in Maharashtra without a licence. Uber has been operating under provisional licences that are extended on a monthly basis.