Delhi court summons Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and India Head Amit Jain

A district court has ordered Uber co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick , along with India head Amit Jain , to appear before it on June 8. The notice comes in response to a challan filed by the Delhi transport department more than a month ago. The challan was issued against Kalanick and Jain for operating as travel agents for cabs caught plying illegally in the city .

A senior transport official said, "Earlier, the challans were issued against the driver or owner of the cab caught operating illegally. However, we thought since Uber is the cab aggregator and responsible for the taxi being on the streets the challan should be issued to Kalanick and the India head for acting as unlicensed travel agents."

The challan was issued under Section 93 of Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. Under this section, no one is allowed to "engage himself as an agent or canvasser and "solicit customers" for public service vehicles like taxis. It is only allowed if "he has obtained a licence from such authority subject to conditions as may be prescribed by the state government." The court notice was issued by metropolitan magistrate Vaibhav Mehta.

Despite several attempts, Uber did not respond to calls. "We have issued multiple challans and the company has to respond to it if it doesn't want to be prosecuted," the official said.

During the second phase of the odd-even scheme in April, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had banned surge pricing and warned cab aggregators of action for charging fares higher than those prescribed by the state transport authority. Ola and Uber had suspended their peak pricing policies as the transport department had begun impounding their cabs. However, a few days after the odd-even scheme ended Uber revived its peak pricing norms.

While the drive was on we realised that it is the cab owners who suffer. Most of them are financially weak driving cars bought on loan. The parent company is never touched, so we decided to challan Uber's top brass," said a senior government official.

In May, seven enforcement teams had impounded 13 cabs of Uber for flouting norms. On May 10, the transport department issued 13 challans naming Kalanick and Jain as "the accused". The court took cognisance of the challans and issued Uber a notice, said the official.

Incidentally, Uber has now suspended its surge pricing claiming that it is keeping fares within the state mandated upper ceiling of Rs 23 per km.

Image credit: Indiatimes