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Pune police have asked Google and Apple to remove Rapido’s app from their app stores, stating that Bengaluru-based ride-hailing platform is running bike taxis in the city without the licence the state requires.

Rapido offers bike taxis, autorickshaws and cabs through a single app and operates in more than 400 Indian cities.

Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar confirmed the request on Monday to media. It follows a letter from Pune Collector Jitendra Dudi, who chairs the Regional Transport Authority, asking the police to shut the service down, and an FIR registered on 16 October at Vishrantwadi police station against Rapido’s parent, Roppen Transportation Services Pvt Ltd.

“We have already sent communications to Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store to put down Rapido’s application,” Kumar said.

Removal from an app store stops new downloads. It does not delete the app from phones that already have it, and it does not stop bookings.

As of Monday the bike taxi option was still showing on the Rapido app in Pune and rides were still running. Because the same app carries autos and cabs, a takedown would cut off those two services as well for anyone trying to install it.

What the FIR alleges

The FIR said Rapido used its app to arrange paid passenger rides on two-wheelers registered as non-transport vehicles. That is an ordinary private registration: the registration does not authorise carrying paying passengers or establish commercial fitness certification or insurance cover.

The case was built from a booking. Pune RTO motor vehicle inspector Prasad Govardhan Surwase booked a ride on the app during an enforcement drive, and a bike arrived.

According to the FIR, Rapido applied for an aggregator licence to the Transport Commissioner’s Office in Mumbai on 11 August 2026 and the application had not been cleared when the ride took place.

The complaint also cites an RTO notice of 15 October, a Transport Commissioner’s Office notice of 29 April 2025, the rejection of Rapido’s Pune licence application in December 2022 and the Bombay High Court order of January 2023 that told the company to stop operating its app. It further alleges inadequate driver background checks.

Rapido has not responded publicly to the FIR or the police letters.

The rule a petrol bike cannot meet

Maharashtra’s cabinet cleared a bike taxi policy on 1 April 2025 and the rules were notified on 4 July 2025, under Section 93 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, which requires states to frame the conditions on which aggregator licences are granted.

Those rules shut the door on petrol fleets. Only 100% electric two-wheelers may run as bike taxis, an aggregator must keep at least 50 of them registered in Maharashtra, and the licence runs five years against a fee of Rs 1 lakh and a security deposit of Rs 5 lakh. Riders must be aged 20 to 50, hold a public service vehicle badge and clear police verification. Trips are capped at 15 km, duty at eight hours a day, and fares and fleet caps are left to the local RTO.

That is the gap at the centre of the Pune dispute. The two-wheelers the enforcement drive found were petrol bikes on private plates, which no amount of paperwork fits into an electric-only scheme.

The last app store takedown lasted one night

Maharashtra has tried this route before, five months ago. On 15 May, the office of the Additional Director General of Police, Maharashtra Cyber, ordered Google and Apple to “remove and disable access to the applications from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store”, naming Ola, Uber and Rapido.

The notices cited Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, the provision under which a platform loses its protection from liability for third-party activity if it fails to act on a government notice. Transport Minister Pratap Sarnaik had written to the cyber department three days earlier seeking the shutdown.

“There is no guarantee of passenger safety in these unauthorized bike taxi services,” he said.

Both stores complied that Friday night. The apps were back the next day after the Centre stepped in, with officials noting that the removal had also stopped cab and autorickshaw bookings. The state then said it would require operators to build Maharashtra-specific apps with geo-fencing.

What the enforcement record shows

Rapido accounts for most of the cases the state has registered. Between April 2025 and March 2026, the transport department recorded 715 Rapido bike taxis operating illegally against 43 for Uber and 18 for Ola, according to figures reported by the Indian Express, with 110 Rapido vehicles seized, and at least nine FIRs filed and over Rs 11.85 lakh collected in fines across aggregators. Fourteen more FIRs were lodged by May 2026.

The business behind those numbers has been growing fast. Rapido’s revenue from operations rose about 44% to Rs 934 crore in FY25 from Rs 648 crore in FY24, and its net loss narrowed 30.5% to Rs 258 crore.

In May it said it had raised $240 million led by Prosus, part of a $730 million primary and secondary transaction that valued it at $3 billion.

Karnataka’s version of the same fight is in the Supreme Court

The question of whether a state can simply switch bike taxis off has gone further next door. The Karnataka High Court halted services there in April 2025 until the state framed rules. On 23 January 2026 a division bench set that order aside and allowed bike taxis subject to registration and permits, holding that a blanket ban was an unreasonable restraint on the freedom to carry on trade under Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution, while leaving the state free to impose safety conditions.

Karnataka appealed. Its special leave petition, diary number 24566/2026, filed in April, names Ola, Uber, Rapido and the Bike Taxi Welfare Association and argues that motorcycles were never classified as contract carriages under the Motor Vehicles Act. The Supreme Court heard the matter on Monday and directed that it be listed in the week commencing 16 November.

Autorickshaw unions in Pune have attacked the authorities for sending notices while the service keeps running. Keshav Kshirsagar, president of the Maharashtra Kamgar Sabha and the Indian Gig Workers Front, has asked for the service to be stopped and has raised rider verification and passenger safety, pointing to a case from last week.