New Delhi, Sep 30 The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought the stand of the Centre, Delhi Police, Delhi government and ride-hailing platforms Uber, Rapido and Ola Cabs on a plea seeking measures to ensure the safety and security of women passengers using the app-based services.
"We want to make the apps accountable," said a bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia while issuing notice to the authorities as well as Uber India Systems Pvt Ltd, Roppen Transportation Services Pvt Ltd and ANI Technologies Pvt Ltd on a PIL by Aditya Sehgal.
Roppen Transportation Services operates Rapido platform, while ANI Technologies is the parent company of Ola Cabs.
The bench listed the matter for hearing in December and asked the respondents to file their response.
The counsel for the petitioner contended that the app-based operators were plying thousands of cabs in the capital without any "checks" on their drivers, including whether they were drunk during the night hours.
In his petition, Sehgal raised several concerns with respect to the operation of the private cabs, which included verification of criminal antecedents of drivers, vehicle identification, route deviation, emergency response, grievance redressal, preservation of electronic evidence and coordination between app-based transportation platforms and law enforcement authorities.
The plea asserted that the authorities should ensure surveillance and monitoring of public roads, particularly at vulnerable, isolated and high-risk locations, and undertake a comprehensive review of the existing safety mechanisms and protocols for the app-based transportation services.
It further sought directions to the aggregators to establish a 24×7 'Command and Control Centre' equipped to receive, monitor and respond to emergency and SOS alerts raised by passengers.
The plea also prayed for directions to the authorities to mandate periodic and verifiable training of cab drivers on gender sensitisation, appropriate conduct with women passengers, prevention of sexual harassment, maintenance of personal boundaries, etc.
