Facing charges of fleecing passengers during the ongoing odd-even scheme by arbitrarily applying “surge rates” to their fares, taxi aggregators Uber and Ola were dragged to the Delhi High Court on the fourth day of the road-rationing scheme on Monday.
An application moved in the court, in a batch of cases pertaining to ban on diesel-run taxis, stated that the cab companies had begun over-charging and imposing surge rates as soon as the scheme started.
Justice J.R. Midha issued a notice to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government, asking it to file a status report on how it proposed to take action against the aggregators, who were flouting the rules by charging fares beyond the limits prescribed by the government. The matter will be next heard on April 25.
The court observed that if citizens were being inconvenienced, the government could not wash its hands off the issue. When the taxi operators were advertising low fares and then charging high fares, the government must take action against them, said the court.
The Judge also said that the government must enforce its own rules to ensure that the people were not made to suffer at the hands of taxi operators.
According to the petitioner, Ola and Uber were rampantly flouting the government’s notification fixing the fares of economy taxis at Rs.12.5 per km and were actually charging Rs.40 to Rs.50 per km on the pretext of surge pricing.
The petitioner said the Delhi government had failed to take action against the cab companies despite repeated complaints made to it.
Meanwhile, High Court Bar Association president Rajiv Khosla has filed a writ petition seeking exemption for advocates from the odd-even scheme and challenging imposition of Rs.2,000 as fine for violation without proper amendments in the Motor Vehicles Act.
What is surge pricing?
Surge pricing is essentially an increase in cab rates, which occurs automatically based on higher demand for cabs than availability or when the number of drivers at a location is lower than the number drivers in the vicinity of customers.
Cab operating companies say prices surge "to ensure reliability and availability for those who agree to pay a bit more."
