The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice to cab-hailing platforms Uber, Ola and Rapido, besides the Centre and the Delhi government, on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking stronger safety measures for women travelling through app-based taxi and ride-hailing services.
A Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia directed the concerned parties to file their replies and listed the matter for further hearing on December 16.
The court said it wanted to make private operators of taxi applications accountable for the safety mechanisms provided to passengers. “We want to make the private operators of the taxi apps accountable. That is the reason we are issuing notices,” the bench observed.
The court passed the directions while dealing with a PIL filed by Aditya Sehgal, which seeks a comprehensive overhaul of safety mechanisms for women using app-based cabs, bike taxis and other ride-hailing services.
During the hearing, counsel appearing for Sehgal submitted that app-based companies operate more than two lakh cabs in the Delhi-NCR region but alleged that there is no adequate checking of drivers during night hours.
The counsel submitted that there was no checking of drivers after 8 pm or 9 pm to ascertain whether they were operating at airports or other strategic locations and whether they were under the influence of alcohol.
The PIL raises concerns relating to driver verification and criminal antecedent checks, identification of drivers and vehicles, route deviation, emergency response, grievance redressal and coordination between ride-hailing platforms and law-enforcement authorities.
Advocates Vikas Gupta, Aditya Sehgal, Kushik Anand and Sohil Sharma are representing the petitioner.
The plea seeks directions to ensure that the driver and vehicle undertaking a ride match the details displayed on the application. It also seeks that passengers be allowed to cancel rides without penalty in cases of unauthorised substitution of a driver or vehicle, with such incidents recorded as safety-related events.
The petitioner has also sought the establishment of 24×7 command and control centres to respond to SOS alerts. Under the proposed mechanism, booking details, driver identity, vehicle registration number and real-time location could be shared with emergency responders and police, subject to applicable law and privacy safeguards.
The PIL further seeks automated alerts in cases of material or unexplained route deviation, periodic gender-sensitivity training for drivers and surveillance mechanisms at vulnerable and isolated locations.
It also proposes a pool of verified female drivers, with women travelling alone being given an option to request or preferentially be allotted such drivers, subject to availability and operational feasibility.
The plea seeks a time-bound grievance-redressal mechanism for complaints relating to driver misconduct, harassment, assault, route deviation, unauthorised changes of driver or vehicle and failure of emergency-response systems. It also seeks periodic compliance reporting by app-based aggregators and uniform enforcement of safety measures across platforms operating in Delhi.
(with inputs from ANI)
