HC reserves order on Ola cabs' plea against ban

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday reserved its order on app-based cab service Ola's plea against a single judge's order asking Delhi government to "strictly enforce" the ban imposed by it on January 1.

A division bench of Chief Justice G. Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath reserved their order after counsel for Ola cabs and the Delhi government concluded arguments, following Ola challenging the single judge bench's July 29 order directing the Delhi government and traffic police to enforce the ban order issued on January 1 on radio cab services not registered under the radio taxi scheme and running on diesel.

The company told the bench that the single judge had overlooked the Supreme Court's orders on the kind of taxis that can run on city's roads. The company's counsel said that the Supreme Court had clarified it has not prohibited running of taxis, which are Euro II compliant or follow even better emission standards and that it has not ordered conversion to CNG.

The apex court had only imposed a restriction with regard to age of vehicles as it said no 15-year-old commercial vehicles shall run in Delhi, and not with regard to to fuel used by them, it maintained.

Representing Delhi government, advocate Naushad Ahmed Khan opposed the plea. On January 1, the Delhi government had banned the operation of app-based cab services till they complied with the guidelines of the Radio Taxi Scheme of 2006 which was amended on December 26, 2014 .