The battle between Ola and Uber continues to rage on with Ola presenting a ‘statement of objections’ against Uber to the Karnataka High Court on Monday evening along with a verifying affidavit.
Referring to Uber going to court objecting certain clauses of the On Demand Transportation Technology Aggregators Rules, 2016, Ola has accused Uber of bypassing the laws of the land as a for-profit foreign company without due regard for the applicable laws.
Stating that Uber has been responsible for several violations, including its motorcycle-taxi operations, uberMOTO, Ola has listed a set of clauses under the uberMOTO platform that clearly violates the law.
In a quick response to Ola, Bhavik Rathod, General Manager, Uber Bengaluru, in a blog posted on Tuesday evening, titled ‘Let’s Keep Bangalore Moving’, accuses Ola of levelling false allegations. “In the affidavit submitted by our competition, they… have chosen the Hon’ble Court as an avenue to level false allegations while not taking a stand on whether it supports or objects to these regulations.” Stating that Uber has the deepest respect for the laws of India, he took another dig at Ola. “What makes Uber ‘foreign’? The fact that we are established in San Francisco but have a hyper-local team solving problems that are locally relevant; or that, just like our competitors, we received most of our funding from ‘foreign’, investors.
He said Uber has submitted details of 100 cars to obtain licence under the current regulations, but for reasons unknown to it, was yet to be granted the licence and has instead been asked to undergo the same process again with another local RTO.
On being asked about the status of Ola and Uber’s licence, Ramegowda, Commissioner for Transport and Road Safety, Karnataka, told BusinessLine : “Ola has submitted only 100 cars to obtain the licence, but it still has to submit the rest of its fleet. Uber is yet to send its first 100 cars for inspection.” When asked about possible timelines on when the process would be completed, he said: “It depends on them, we are ready.”