Ola in HC against summons in criminal case accusing it of overcharging

The Delhi High Court today sought the response of an NGO on Ola cabs' plea for quashing the criminal complaint against it and the summons issued to it to appear as an accused in the matter.
The NGO Nyaya Bhoomi had sought recovery of Rs 91,000 crore from app-based taxi service providers for allegedly overcharging passengers.
Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva issued the notice to the NGO and sought its response by August 20 on the plea of ANI Technologies, which provides app-based taxi services under the name of Ola.
The company has challenged the summons issued to it on July 31 last year by a metropolitan magistrate for the violation of provisions of the Motor Vehicles (MV) Act by allegedly operating taxis without a licence and charging excess fares from passengers.

The trial court had also summoned as accused Uber India and Serendipity Infolabs Pvt Ltd, which runs Taxi For Sure.
Ola, in its plea, has claimed that the trial court order was without any legal or factual basis as till date the Delhi government has not come out with a scheme to regulate the running of app-based taxi services.

It has also said in its petition that a bill to amend the MV Act to regulate aggregators like it was before the Lok Sabha and the operations of such entities was already being looked into by the high court in another matter.

The Delhi High Court in August 2016 had directed that after August 22, 2016, taxi aggregators/ operators shall not charge fare more than the cap stipulated in the Delhi government's June 2013 notification.
The trial court in its order had noted that excess fares have been charged by the companies in violation of the MV Act, June 20, 2013 notification as well as city taxi service scheme.
The NGO, in its plea, had also sought recovery of a whopping Rs 91,000 crore from the cab service providers for allegedly not adhering to rules relating to fares and not operating by meters.

It had also sought recovery of an additional penalty of Rs 26,000 crore from the firms and jail term for them.