CHENNAI: A division bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday stayed the operation of a single judge’s order dated July 18, which restrained Roppen Transport Corporation from acting as an intermediary to connect private motorcycle owners to offer pillion seats to the commuting public and the earlier orders dated July 6 of Cyber Crime Cell directing Google, Apple India Private Limited and senior director of Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), to remove the `Rapido bike app’, from their respective platforms.
A bench of Justices Vineet Kothari and C V Karthikeyan granted the injunction while passing interim orders on an appeal from the Telangana-based company challenging the two orders. When the matter came up, company senior counsel explained the procedure of booking of bikes through their app ‘Rapido’ and the safety measures provided by it to pillion riders, including insurance for both riders and pillion riders, provision of helmets and safety measures for women, etc.
The bench noted that the State government had not filed any counter in response to the earlier writ petition before the single judge as well as to the present appeal. Hence, it directed the government to file the counter in two weeks. It must disclose as to when it is likely to frame the specific regulations for the bikers apps operators, as has been done by other States such as Telangana, Rajasthan, etc.
“Considering the facts and circumstances of the case, we stay the operation of the communications/letters dated July 6 of the Assistant Commissioner of Police G Velmurugan, Cyber Crime Cell, Central Crime Branch at Vepery addressed to Google, Apple India and to CERT, directing them to remove ‘Rapido Bike App’ from their respective platforms,” the bench said.
Prayer
The Telangana-based company’s main prayer is to quash the interim order of single judge restraining it from continuing the business till the regulations are framed by the State government