Right of way

Why in the News?

The Supreme Court has reaffirmed that the right to walk safely on demarcated footpaths is part of Article 21 and therefore a fundamental right. The judgment highlights the gap between constitutional recognition of pedestrian rights and the absence of adequate pedestrian infrastructure.

What has the Supreme Court held on the right to walk?

1. Article 21 Protection: The Court held that safe access to footpaths forms part of the right to life and personal liberty.
2. Pedestrian Dignity: Walking is not merely a mode of transport. It is a constitutional entitlement linked to safety and dignity.
3. State Responsibility: Governments must ensure safe pedestrian infrastructure and cannot treat pedestrians as secondary road users.
4. Compensation Jurisprudence: The ruling emerged from a case involving the death of a five-year-old child who was hit by a tanker lorry in Karnataka.

Why Does India Lack Functional Pedestrian Infrastructure?

1. No central law: No national law governs pedestrian rights or safety.
2. Vehicle-Centric Planning: Urban transport systems prioritise road expansion and vehicle movement.
3. Fragmented responsibility: Responsibility for pedestrian safety is split across municipal laws, town-planning statutes, and street design guidelines, with no single accountable authority.
4. Minimal safety standard: Current practice treats pedestrians as safe if they face no immediate physical harm, not if they have usable, continuous infrastructure.
5. Physical encroachment: Existing footpaths are frequently encroached by parking, vendors, utilities, and construction debris.
6. Competing infrastructure priorities: Road-widening projects compete with footpath space, with roads typically winning.

Why is recognition of a right insufficient by itself?

1. Rights Need Infrastructure: A right becomes ineffective when the supporting public infrastructure is absent.
2. Implementation Deficit: India often struggles with execution rather than legal recognition.
3. Administrative Neglect: Urban local bodies frequently delay or abandon pedestrian projects.
4. Funding Priorities: Public expenditure remains concentrated on road widening and motorised transport.
5. Behavioural Norms: Motorists often view pedestrians as obstacles rather than legitimate road users.

What Tension Does the Ruling Expose Between Rights Recognition and State Capacity?

1. Right without infrastructure is hollow: If the state does not build footpaths, the citizen’s right to walk on them carries no practical content.
2. Compensation is not prevention: A right enforced only through post-tragedy compensation does not change the conditions that caused the harm.
3. Conflict with the Street Vendors Act: The new judgment is likely to generate disputes with the 2014 Act, since reclaiming footpaths for pedestrians can mean removing vendors the 2014 Act protects.
4. Risk of gentrification: A state acting on this ruling could use it to clear footpaths of informal commercial activity, criminalising the survival strategies of the urban poor under the cover of a pedestrian-rights judgment.

Does India’s Experience with Rights-Based Legislation Suggest that Legal Recognition Alone Is Insufficient?

1. Street Vendors Act, 2014: The Act protects vendors’ right to trade under Article 19(1)(g). Implementation has lagged because surveys, Town Vending Committees, and vending zones remain incomplete. Municipalities continue eviction drives despite legal protection.
2. Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act 2003: Public smoking declined through sustained enforcement, social messaging, and small immediate penalties. Behaviour changed because legal recognition was backed by continuous implementation.
3. Swachh Bharat and Waste Segregation Laws: Citizens are required to segregate waste. Municipal systems often fail to collect segregated waste. The absence of supporting infrastructure weakens compliance.
4. Implementation Gap: Rights and duties succeed only when governments create the institutions, incentives, and enforcement mechanisms needed to support them.
5. Lesson for the Right to Walk: Pedestrian rights will remain symbolic unless cities build continuous, unobstructed footpaths and protect them from encroachment.

What Precondition Determines Whether the Right Produces Real Change?

1. Pedestrian Infrastructure as the Missing Link: Constitutional recognition cannot improve pedestrian safety unless cities build continuous and unobstructed footpaths.
2. Funding Redirection as the Binding Constraint: The ruling’s success depends on shifting public expenditure towards pedestrian infrastructure rather than treating the judgment as a compensation mechanism.
3. Risk of Legal Tokenism: If the right remains usable only for post-tragedy compensation claims, it produces no change in pedestrian mobility or safety.
4. Cultural Internalisation of Right of Way: Pavements must be socially recognised as pedestrian space. Judicial declaration alone cannot alter road-use behaviour.

What must change for the right to walk to become meaningful?

1. Dedicated Pedestrian Infrastructure: Cities must invest in continuous and obstruction-free footpaths.
2. Pedestrian-First Urban Design: Walking must become the foundation of street planning.
3. Clear Space Allocation: Urban authorities must balance pedestrian access and vendor livelihoods.
4. Municipal Accountability: Local bodies must be assessed on pedestrian safety outcomes.
5. Stable Funding: Budget allocations must shift towards non-motorised transport infrastructure.

Conclusion

The Supreme Court has expanded constitutional protection for pedestrians, but rights alone cannot create safe streets. India’s challenge is not recognising the right to walk but building the footpaths, governance mechanisms and urban priorities that make that right real. The success of the judgment depends on shifting public investment and administrative attention towards pedestrian infrastructure rather than merely providing legal remedies after accidents.