Mumbai, July 3 -- Maharashtra transport minister Pratap Sarnaik, under an alias, booked a Rapido bike on Wednesday to test whether the service was still being offered despite it being illegal due to the lack of proper regulations for bike taxis. The biker, unaware of the identity of his customer, rode right into the midst of transport department officials who caught him red handed. However, Sarnaik directed officials not to register a case against the bike driver as he was merely an employee, and instead take action against the company. On April 1, the state cabinet had issued a draft electric-bike taxi policy saying that only e-bikes which fulfilled the government's criteria could be used as bike taxis. The policy was to come into play once it was approved in July, but so far, due to the lack of proper regulations, all bike taxis are illegal in the state. When Sarnaik had asked his department officials about bike taxis, he was told that they did not exist. However, his 'sting operation' proved them wrong. He said, "I want to take action against the app operators and not against the bike owners." He added that his officers had misled him and he would look into the issue. Sarnaik's office issued a press release reiterating that no official permission was given for Rapido bikes to begin operating yet. In another incident, on July 19, the Azad Maidan police had registered a case against Uber and Rapido for running bike taxi services in the states without permissions, after the RTO officials had booked dummy rides on the two platforms and found that private vehicles with white number plates were being used to run commercial services. The transport commissioner Vivek Bhimanwar, and Rapido did not respond to queries....