The Delhi High Court today made it clear that only those cabs which run on compressed natural gas (CNG) can ply on the national capital’s roads.
Justice Manmohan said that since he has already passed an order against ANI Technologies, the company that owns Ola, prohibiting it from running diesel cabs, then same would apply “across the board” to other companies including Uber.
“I cannot discriminate against them (Ola). I can’t say Ola has to comply and Uber need not. You have to comply with my order on CNG. That’s all,” the judge said.
He also said that his decision has been affirmed by the division bench, so it means the order applies to everyone, so he need to abide by that order.
“How can people take law in their hands? You will have to behave in accordance with law,” the court said, adding that “since Delhi government has come out with some scheme, why don’t you (Ola and Uber) comply with it?”
Uber India, which was represented through senior advocate Rajiv Nayar, said that it can replace the diesel taxis with CNG cabs within six months.
“It cannot be done overnight. It can be done in a phased manner. I can only say that from today no new diesel taxis would be used,” Nayar said.
Hearing which the judge said that Ola undertook to make the change in a reasonable time period, “so you need to be realistic and do the same in time bound manner and tell us”.
Nayar said he needed time to seek instruction from Uber on this aspect of the time frame in which they will phase out diesel taxis.
Thereafter, the court listed the matter for tomorrow by when Nayar has been asked to take instruction from Uber.
The court was hearing a plea filed by Association of Radio Taxis, represented by senior advocate Nidesh Gupta, who contended that the court’s order upholding a ban on diesel cabs providing point-to-point service in the national capital was being implemented only against Ola while other app-based taxi services were violating it with impunity.