Walking Is Now A Fundamental Right: What It Means for You and How to Enforce It

Can a citizen drag a municipal corporation to court simply because a road has no footpath? Until last week, the honest answer was murky at best. The Supreme Court has now settled it.

Deciding an appeal that began as a routine accident compensation case, where a five-year-old died on a road with neither a footpath nor a pedestrian crossing, the bench of Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Atul S. Chandurkar declared that walking safely is a fundamental right, and an unsafe, footpath-less road is a constitutional violation, not merely a planning lapse.

This is, at its core, an urban governance ruling dressed up as a road accident case. The court located the right to walk in Article 19(1)(d), the freedom to move across India, layered with Articles 19(1)(a), (b), (c) and 21. "The citizen's fundamental right to walk on a demarcated footpath is primary and shall have priority over movement by motorised vehicles," the bench wrote, going on to call this "the minimum of the minimum duty that a municipal authority owes to the citizens." That sentence alone reorders how Indian cities are supposed to be built and maintained, footpaths first, traffic lanes second.

For the public, this changes the legal character of a problem most people have simply learned to live with. A missing footpath outside a school, a market, or a housing colony was, until now, filed mentally under civic neglect, something for a councillor or a newspaper column to flag. The court has reclassified it.

Wherever a road exists, there is now an enforceable duty on urban development authorities, municipal corporations, municipalities and panchayats to demarcate, construct and maintain a footpath alongside it. A citizen denied that footpath is not inconvenienced; their fundamental right is being violated by a specific, identifiable authority.

So, what can someone actually do if their road has no walkable pavement? Start by identifying the correct authority, since responsibility depends on the road: a municipal corporation for city roads, the public works department or NHAI for state and national highways passing through habitations, and the panchayat for rural roads. Photograph the stretch, note the absence of a footpath or crossing, and send a written representation to that authority asking for footpath construction, citing this judgment by name. Keep a copy, and follow up with an RTI application asking whether the road has a sanctioned footpath plan, and if not, why not. If there is no response, or an unsatisfactory one, the next step is a writ petition before the jurisdictional High Court under Article 226, seeking a mandamus directing the authority to demarcate and construct a footpath; this need not be an individual claim, it can be filed as a public interest litigation covering an entire neighbourhood or stretch of road. The Supreme Court has also flagged Sections 38 to 40 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963, as a separate civil route to enforce this public duty.

Crucially, this remedy stands apart from a Motor Vehicles Act claim. If an accident has already occurred because of the absence of a footpath, a compensation claim before the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal does not use up a victim's options. A separate constitutional or civil action against the civic body for failing in its duty, seeking restitution for the rights violation itself, remains open.

The court has not left this to litigation alone. It has impleaded the Union government through the Ministries of Housing and Urban Affairs, Rural Development, and Road Transport and Highways, and asked the Law Commission to study a dedicated statute with its own regulator, since, as the bench observed, the Motor Vehicles Act "is not and has never been the statute that recognises the fundamental right to walk." Until that law exists, the constitutional remedy is what citizens have, and now, for the first time, courts are bound to take that remedy seriously rather than treat it as a mere civic grievance.

Case Title: Maniyar Iliyaz @ Shaik Riyaz & Anr. vs P. Ayyappan & Ors.

Date of Judgment: June 19, 2026

Bench: Justice P.S. Narasimha and Justice Atul S. Chandurkar