The Delhi High Court has sought responses from Uber, Ola, Rapido, the Centre and the Delhi government on a public interest litigation seeking stronger safety measures for women using app-based cabs, bike taxis and other ride-hailing services in Delhi-NCR.
A Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia directed the concerned parties to file their replies by the next hearing on December 16. The court said it wanted private operators to be held 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 while hearing the petition filed by Aditya Sehgal. The plea seeks a comprehensive overhaul of safety systems covering driver verification, passenger identification, emergency response and coordination with law-enforcement agencies.
During the hearing, counsel for the petitioner submitted that app-based companies operate more than two lakh cabs in the Delhi-NCR region. The counsel alleged that there was no adequate checking of drivers during night hours, including verification of whether drivers operating at airports or other strategic locations were under the influence of alcohol. The submission referred to the absence of checks after 8pm or 9pm.
The petition has raised concerns over criminal antecedent checks, the identification of drivers and vehicles, route deviation, grievance redressal and coordination between ride-hailing platforms and authorities. It seeks directions requiring the driver and vehicle undertaking a ride to match the details displayed on the app.
The plea also proposes that passengers should be allowed to cancel rides without penalty when an unauthorised driver or vehicle substitution occurs. Such incidents, it says, should be recorded as safety-related events. It has further sought 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 petition also seeks automated alerts for material or unexplained route deviations and surveillance mechanisms at vulnerable and isolated locations.
Other measures proposed in the plea include periodic gender-sensitivity training for drivers, a pool of verified female drivers and an option for women travelling alone to request or be preferentially allotted female drivers, subject to availability and operational feasibility.
The petitioner has also sought a time-bound grievance-redressal system for complaints involving driver misconduct, harassment, assault, route deviation, unauthorised changes of driver or vehicle and failures of emergency-response systems. It has proposed periodic compliance reporting by app-based aggregators and uniform enforcement of safety measures across platforms operating in Delhi.
The court’s notices seek the responses of the ride-hailing companies and government authorities before the matter is considered further on December 16.
