Karnataka HC gives government a month to frame bike-taxi policy

The Karnataka High Court tightened the pace on the state government’s approach to bike taxis, giving the administration a month to decide whether to frame a comprehensive policy while allowing ride-hailing platforms to continue their appeals. The division bench, led by Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice C M Joshi, stressed that lives are at stake and ruled that a blanket prohibition on bike taxi services is unconstitutional if the sector is otherwise legal and unprohibited, even as it refrained from issuing an interim order permitting operations.

The court’s line of questioning reflected a persistent tension: the state argues that motorcycles used as taxis cannot be categorized under existing Motor Vehicles Act provisions without formal guidelines, while operators and their supporters contend that regulation, not outright banning, is both possible and necessary for urban mobility. During the hearing, the government asserted that bikes cannot be classified as transport vehicles under the Act, and that rules were needed to avoid legal overreach. The bench challenged this argument by asking whether a city can claim that congestion justifies a total ban, and suggested that if...