The right to walk: After Supreme Court judgement, who will reclaim our footpaths?

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COM / Updated: Jul 05, 2026, 16:45 ISTCommentsShareAA+Text SizeSmallMediumLarge Parked vehicles and stored goods occupy a footpath, obstructing pedestrian movement, at Lajpat Nagar, in New Delhi. (PTI Photo) A five-year-old child was killed by a tanker on his way to school with his father. At the site of the tragedy, there was no footpath or a proper pedestrian crossing.

On June 19, in a compensation case (Maniyar Iliyaz @ Shaik Riyaz v. P. Ayyappan) delivered by a bench of Justices P S Narasimha and A S Chandurkar, Supreme Court declared the right to walk on safe, demarcated footpaths as a fundamental right under the right to free movement under Article 19(1)(d) and the right to life under Article 21.

Watch Supreme Court, Broken Pavements and Delhi's Pedestrians: Ground ReportThe bench said that accidents like this continue and perhaps they are inevitable until our rights regime is restructured regarding access to roads.It further stated that the Motor Vehicles Act of 1988 neither recognises nor has ever recognised a fundamental right to walk and in fact, the law has actually hindered this right, weakening pedestrians' rights in many respects.“The irony all along has been that we have often celebrated flyovers, expressways and large road projects, but have ignored the most basic unit of movement i.

e. the pedestrian. The judgment should change how footpaths are imagined.

They must be continuous, walkable, safe, accessible and free from obstruction,” said advocate Mayank Arora with The Chambers of Bharat Chugh.Data shows that from January to March this year, Delhi traffic police handed out 4,30,202 on-the-spot fines for improper or obstructive parking, making it the city’s most frequently committed traffic offence.Crisis of pedestrian fatalityA simple stroll around Delhi reveals how non-functional most of its footpaths are.

Broken slabs, potholes and garbage strewn everywhere are a common sight. They are dug up or interrupted abruptly. This forces dwellers onto the main road, where they face the threat of collision with vehicles.

India Status Report on Road Safety, compiled by the Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Centre (TRIPC) at IIT Delhi, indicates that footpath availability ranges from as low as 3% in Jammu and Kashmir to about 73% in Maharashtra. In states like Bihar, Haryana and Puducherry, usable pavements remain scarce.Recent data released by road transport ministry for 2024 revealed that more than 1.

8 lakh pedestrians were killed in road crashes across India between 2019 and 2024. It averages to an annual of 30,500 pedestrian fatalities. National Highway (NH) network accounted for nearly 31% of these deaths.

Around 54% of pedestrian deaths involved collisions with two-wheelers and cars, claiming 19,680 lives. The absence of safe footpaths and pedestrian crossing infrastructure is behind the country’s pedestrian fatality toll, which is among the highest globally.Right reserved for the privilegedThe bench called it strange that it escaped them to focus on recognizing and securing this right to walk.

“It may be because wheels eclipsed our imagination, and our municipal administration was busy creating roads suitable for motorized vehicles,” said the court.“It could also be elitism to start with, for machines with wheels were only for the rich, but as economies progressed and cheaper motor vehicles were introduced, the entire spectrum of motorized transportation dominated the roads, pushing aside the walkers to the extent that they are treated as a nuisance for the drivers who routinely run over the walkers and their footpaths.”Shweta Raj, who comes from Bihar’s Samastipur, says the concept of footpaths ends once you leave Patna.

“As soon as you deviate from the capital, you will see the footpaths disappearing,” she said. “In the rural areas, even the main roads aren’t properly built. Functional footpaths are out of the question.”

In her own city, footpaths only exist on bridges. Even then, they are blocked by vegetable stalls or parked motorcycles.Question of hawkers and homeless peopleThe question of hawkers, encroached spaces and the right to earn a livelihood has dominated the contemporary Indian d