Rapido Booked Over Illegal Bike Taxi in Pune

• Case registered against Rapido’s parent company
• RTO decoy operation uncovers alleged unauthorised bike taxi
• Pune authorities demand suspension pending valid licence
• Police invoke BNS and transport law provisions

GG News Bureau
Pune, 17th Oct: A case has been registered against Roppen Transport Pvt Ltd, the parent company of bike-taxi aggregator Rapido, after transport officials allegedly caught a rider operating an unauthorised bike taxi during a decoy operation in Pune, officials said on Saturday.

The complaint was lodged at Vishrantwadi police station following an operation by a Regional Transport Office (RTO) road safety squad on Friday. An RTO official booked a 13-kilometre ride from Yerawada to the Kothrud bus depot through the Rapido app for ₹179.

When the rider arrived on a petrol-powered two-wheeler registered in the non-transport category, RTO inspectors took possession of the vehicle and issued a challan under the Motor Vehicles Act.

The action followed a meeting chaired on Thursday by Pune Collector and Regional Transport Authority (RTA) Chairman Jitendra Dudi, who directed Rapido to suspend its operations across Pune district until it secured a valid e-bike aggregator licence.

The Pune RTA had rejected the company’s licence application on December 20, 2022. Rapido’s subsequent challenges were dismissed by the Bombay High Court in January 2023, which directed the app to shut down its operations, and later by the Supreme Court.

Although the company submitted a fresh application for an aggregator licence on August 11, regulatory approval remains pending, officials said.

Police have registered a case under Section 318(3) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), relating to cheating, along with relevant provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, and the Information Technology Act, 2000. The allegations remain subject to investigation.