Pot and kettle: Ola gets in legal trouble days after calling out Uber

The Uber-Ola fight just got more nasty. Photo credit: CoolNala.

In an almost ironic turn of events for India’s app-taxi industry, Uber’s Indian rival Ola now has a week to tell the government why it was allegedly flouting rules in the state of Karnataka (home to Bangalore), and has been issued a legal notice to the effect.

Tech in Asia saw a copy of the notice, which registers complaints of charging customers extra money during peak rush hours, and also for operating an illegal car pooling service.

Ola’s run-in with the law comes barely days after the company lashed out against Uber, alleging violation of laws of the land.

See: You’re as ‘foreign’ as us, Uber tells Ola after xenophobic attack in court

In the letter addressed to ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd, the company which owns Ola, the transport department has asked for a reply within a week to justify why it wouldn’t be right for the government to revoke Ola’s license.

The government had issued a rule in April barring surge pricing, or “peak-hour pricing” by private taxi operators.

Ola did not respond to an email asking for comments.

The notice is yet another twist in the long and harrowing episode of legal battles app-based taxi operators are fighting in India – with the government, and also among themselves.

Earlier this month, Ola was chastised on the internet for stoking a “nationalist” debate over whether Uber was Indian enough. The company later clarified that it was complaining about Uber’s flouting of regulations, and not its country of origin.

Earlier, Ola had, in an affidavit to a court, said an Uber petition against it was “motivated and has been filed in an attempt to bypass the laws of the land by foreign companies who run their operations in this country for profit without due regard for the applicable laws.”

See: Dear Ola (and Uber): users want efficiency, not nationalist hyperbole

The company had also said it was the only cab aggregator to have been issued a license under the new regulations because it has satisfied all conditions.

However, in the new letter from the government, the transport department questioned Ola for its pricing policies, and also about operating its shuttle services. It said that there is no provision for private companies to operate shuttle services under the Karnataka Motor Vehicle Rules.