Every Legitimate Trade Protected By Constitution: Karnataka High Court Observes In Plea Against Bike Taxi Ban, State Agrees To Consider Issue

The Karnataka Government on Wednesday informed the High Court that a decision in regards to bike taxis will be taken at the highest level in the government.

This comes after a division bench of Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice C M Joshi grilled the State over complete ban on the transport mode, instead of regulating it.

"Today even e-bikes are not allowed. Now a complete legitimate trade is prohibited. So long as you are permitting a service, you can regulate it. The question is whether regulation would entail complete prohibition?” the judges orally observed during the hearing.

The Court was considering appeals filed by bike taxi aggregators Ola, Uber and Rapido against single judge's order halting their operations in the State.

The judges pointed that every trade is permissible unless regulated. "This (bike taxi) is not res-extra commercium (outside commerce),” they said.

Advocate General Shashi Kiran Shetty submitted that the ban was in view of safety issues. “It may be a legitimate business, but law does not vest them with a right to run the business, unless there are rules and regulations framed it cannot be permitted in law,” he said.

The bench however responded that under Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution there is a right to carry out legitimate trade under reasonable restriction. However, here there are no restrictions.

“As of today there is a de-facto prohibition, they are challenging that de-facto prohibition, by saying that this trade cannot be prohibited. Rightly or wrongly, that is their challenge. Second limb of their argument is that if you do not regulate it and do not have policy to regulate it, and otherwise there is a right to carry on this trade under the Constitution, then there is no regulation at all which can prevent them from carrying out this trade, absence of regulation means they not fully prohibited but fully allowed...Your case is that if you do not have a policy that means you have a conscious decision to prohibit,” the judges said.

AG then cited traffic congestion issues, particularly in Bengaluru.

The Court however remarked, "Your arguments run contrary to your policy of last mile connectivity. Is there material to show that this bike is causing congestion. Is it according to you that auto will cause less congestion?"

Shetty then informed the Court that there are around 6 lakh bike taxis in the State and ultimately the question is whether permitting bike taxis as transport vehicles is proper.

At this juncture, the Court asked the State if it can examine the issue on a policy level. "We will defer it by a month. We don't have to be satisfied with the policy, we only have to find out whether the policy is arbitrary, malafide etc, we will not interfere in policy that's the scope," it said.

The AG agreed, stating that they will take a "conscious decision" on the issue. However, he clarified that State is not as of now considering to frame guidelines for bike taxis but, will only take a decision whether or not it should make a policy and if yes, then what policy.

The Court then recorded that “at the level of the government serious thought will be given to the issues raised in the present matter."

As such, it deferred the hearing till September 22. “Give it a serious thought there are lives at stake here,” the Court told the AG while parting.

Case title: Uber India Systems Private Limited AND State of Karnataka and batch

Case No: WA 848/2025, WA 863/2025, WA 906/2025, WA 962/2025, WA 948/2025