The Supreme Court on Friday held that walking safely on demarcated footpaths is a fundamental right. The persons walking on footpaths take priority over the movement of vehicles, the court said.
While the freedom to walk is subject to reasonable restrictions, the authorities must ensure that common spaces are not monopolised by persons driving vehicles, the bench of Justices PS Narasimha and AS Chandurkar said.
The court said that municipal bodies are under an obligation to provide and maintain footpaths, adding that the right flows from the freedoms guaranteed under Articles 19 of the Constitution.
“Clear articulation and declaration of such a right is necessary to recognise the correlative duty to provision and maintain footpaths,” the court said. “The duty bearers are the urban development authorities, municipal corporations, municipalities and even panchayats.”
The court added that the “absence of safe and comfortable footpaths to walk on, and even when they exist, their subjugation to motor transport, has been a civilisational problem”.
The bench said that a violation of the right to walk safely would entitle citizens to seek legal remedies for compensation against the authorities responsible for providing pedestrian infrastructure. This would be separate from their right to file compensation claims under the Motor Vehicles Act.
The Supreme Court directed that a copy of the judgement be sent to the Law Commission and the government to consider a legislation to define rights, duties and enforcement mechanisms. The legislation must protect the right and provide remedies for violations, and set up a regulator to plan and implement the right, it said.
The ruling came in a case pertaining to a road accident in which a five-year-old had been killed after being struck by a tanker while walking to school with his father. The court said that the accident occurred where there was no footpath or pedestrian crossing.
The bench set aside a High Court order that had reduced the compensation awarded to the child’s family, and increased the amount.
Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.
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