The fierce competition between Uber and Ola, which has kept them at loggerheads for quite some time is turning into a public feud now. After Ola alleged Uber of being a ‘foreign company’ and attempting to ‘bypass’ India laws for challenging Karnataka’ new regulations concerning the tech-based cab hailing services, Uber has now hit back.
Uber, in a blog post on Tuesday, wrote that Ola is making “baseless allegations” to “confound and complicate matters.”
“They have chosen the Hon’ble Court as an avenue to level false allegations while not taking a stand on whether it supports or objects to these regulations,” an Uber executive wrote.
After the San Francisco-based company challenged Karnataka government’s regulations, which have the effect of prohibiting surge pricing, in the high court, Ola defended the norms praising them for framing rules with the primary object of promoting and ensuring the safety of the user-riders availing the services of aggregators.
While Ola has been granted a licence by Karnataka, transport officials have made known their displeasure with Uber by not accepting its application despite several tries by the world’s most valuable startup.
“For reasons unknown to us, we’re yet to be granted the license and have instead been asked to undergo the same process all over again with another local authority,” Uber wrote on Tuesday. Uber has also promised not to resort to surge pricing until the court decides the case.
Ola has called Uber’s petition challenging the regulations as “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.” The US company also said it is as “foreign” as Ola, whose shareholders are mostly not Indian.
Uber and Ola have been at loggerheads with each other in the Delhi High Court too, where Uber has accused Ola of resorting to dirty tricks by setting up “fake rider accounts” and misleading its drivers through “fake calls”, which impersonated Uber.
Not only has Ola dismissed those allegations as “frivolous” but it has now claimed that Uber’s lawsuit was in response to its contempt petition for allegedly not complying with a rule that bars the use of diesel vehicles.
In its affidavit in the Karnataka High Court, Ola also alleged that Uber has been offering private vehicles which do not have a contract carriage permit to riders on its platform under the “guise” of car-pooling.
Uber is yet to address this charge in its blog post.
