Author: Suhani Arora
College: SVKM’s NMIMS, School of Law, Mumbai
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suhani-arora-a62902257
To the Point
For years, Indian courts treated footpaths as a side issue, something that came up while settling disputes between hawkers and municipal corporations, or while working out compensation after road accidents. That changed on 19 June 2026. In Maniyar Iliyaz @ Shaik Riyaz v. P. Ayyappan, the Supreme Court expressly recognised the right to walk as a fundamental right under Part III, integral to the freedom of movement under Article 19(1)(d), read with Articles 19(1)(a), (b), and (c), and Article 21. The judgment also connected that right to access to demarcated footpaths.
The case began as an ordinary motor accident claim. A father was walking his five-year-old son to school on a road that had neither a footpath nor a pedestrian crossing. A tanker struck the boy from behind, and he died of his injuries. What started as a fight for fair compensation ended with the Court articulating a constitutional right to walk. This article examines the constitutional basis of that right, the older cases concerning pavements and street vending, and the implications of the 2026 judgment for public authorities and pedestrian infrastructure.
Legal Jargon
A few terms are worth clearing up before getting into the law itself.
A fundamental right is one of the rights protected in Part III of the Constitution, from Article 12 to Article 35. Fundamental rights principally operate against the State, and a person may approach the Supreme Court under Article 32 or a High Court under Article 226 for enforcement of applicable fundamental rights.
Article 19(1)(d) gives every citizen the right to move freely throughout the territory of India. It sits alongside the other freedoms in Article 19(1), including speech, peaceful assembly, association, residence and settlement, and profession, occupation, trade or business.
Article 21 says no person shall be deprived of life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law. Since Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, the Supreme Court has interpreted that procedure as requiring fairness, reasonableness and non-arbitrariness, even though those words do not appear in the constitutional text.
A restitutionary remedy seeks to restore or secure a right or position that has been wrongly denied, rather than merely paying compensation for a loss after the fact.
An encroachment generally refers to unauthorised occupation, construction or obstruction on public land or a public street, including a footpath. A vending zone is an area designated within the statutory framework governing street vending, subject to the applicable street-vending plan and statutory restrictions.
The Proof
Article 19(1)(d) reads: “All citizens shall have the right to move freely throughout the territory of India.” Taken literally, the provision may appear to concern movement across the territory rather than the physical conditions of movement within a city. But a constitutional freedom of movement cannot be understood entirely apart from the conditions that make movement possible. In Maniyar Iliyaz, the Supreme Court gave that proposition a concrete infrastructural dimension by recognising a fundamental right to walk and connecting it to demarcated footpaths.
Article 21 provides that no person shall be deprived of life or personal liberty “except according to procedure established by law.” After Maneka Gandhi, the Court held that the procedure contemplated by Article 21 must satisfy constitutional standards of fairness and reasonableness. That interpretive development enabled the Court to recognise interests such as livelihood, shelter, health and environmental protection within the right to life. It would nevertheless be misleading to treat the right recognised in Maniyar Iliyaz as merely another Article 21 derivative right. The Court anchored the right primarily in Article 19(1)(d), the freedom of movement, and read that guarantee together with Articles 19(1)(a), (b), and (c), and Article 21. The right to walk is therefore both a movement right and a life-and-liberty interest.
The real tension in this field has long been between people who need the same stretch of public space for different purposes: the pedestrian trying to move from one place to another and the street vendor trying to earn a living through trade. Article 19(1)(g) protects the right to carry on an occupation, trade or business, but the Supreme Court has also held that this does not create a fundamental right to occupy a particular patch of public land permanently. The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014 later established a statutory framework for regulated street vending. It provides for surveys, certificates of vending, vending zones, street-vending plans and safeguards concerning relocation and eviction. Section 3(2) ties the accommodation of existing vendors in vending zones to a norm conforming to 2.5% of the population of the relevant ward, zone, town or city, as the case may be, subject to the street-vending plan and holding capacity. Section 3(3) protects existing vendors from eviction or relocation during the statutory transition until the survey is completed and certificates are issued to all street vendors. These protections do not amount to an unrestricted right to occupy pedestrian space.
Municipal law adds another layer. In the Delhi context, Sections 320 and 322 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957 address unauthorised structures and encroachments on public streets and empower the Commissioner to take removal action. The Supreme Court considered those provisions in Municipal Corporation of Delhi v. Gurnam Kaur, a dispute concerning persons occupying pavement space outside Delhi’s Irwin Hospital.
What the 2026 judgment adds is a positive constitutional dimension. The Court held that where a road exists, there is a duty to ensure demarcated and well-maintained footpaths for walkers, and identified urban development authorities, municipal corporations, municipalities and panchayats as relevant duty bearers. The Court stated that these authorities must endeavour to demarcate, construct, maintain and safeguard footpaths. The formulation is significant because it moves beyond merely restraining State interference with movement and recognises the importance of physical infrastructure in making the constitutional freedom meaningful.
At the same time, a distinction is important: the fundamental right is the right to walk; a footpath is a principal form of infrastructure through which that right is facilitated. The judgment should not automatically be read as creating an unlimited individual entitlement to a particular footpath at every location or as requiring identical infrastructure on every road regardless of physical, planning or financial constraints. The precise standards of implementation remain to be worked out.
The Court also connected walking with Articles 19(1)(a), (b), and (c). Walking may carry expressive content under Article 19(1)(a), may facilitate peaceful assembly under Article 19(1)(b), and may enable associational activity under Article 19(1)(c). Cultural, religious, political and reformative forms of walking can therefore involve constitutional interests beyond ordinary commuting.
The judgment further stated that the right to walk on a demarcated footpath takes priority over the movement of motorised vehicles. The exact legal content of that priority remains an important open question. It could operate as a rule against vehicular occupation of pedestrian space, as a principle for urban infrastructure planning, or more broadly as a constitutional principle governing the allocation of public road space. Future courts and public authorities will have to determine how far that priority extends and how it interacts with other legitimate uses of public roads.
The constitutional development also raises a deeper doctrinal question. Article 19(1)(d) has traditionally been understood largely as a freedom against State interference with movement. Maniyar Iliyaz gives it a positive infrastructural dimension by recognising that meaningful walking may require public authorities to provide and maintain pedestrian infrastructure. This does not mean that every Part III freedom automatically creates an unlimited claim to State-funded facilities. Rather, it raises the question of when a constitutional freedom generates a correlative duty of State action. The answer will likely depend on the nature of the infrastructure required, the authority responsible, competing public interests, feasibility, accessibility requirements and the standards that future courts develop.
The balancing exercise can also be framed through Articles 19(5) and 19(6). A restriction on the freedom of movement under Article 19(1)(d) must satisfy Article 19(5), while regulation of street vending under Article 19(1)(g) must satisfy Article 19(6). The pedestrian–vendor conflict therefore cannot be resolved by declaring either side absolute. The constitutional task is to preserve meaningful pedestrian movement while allowing regulated livelihood activity within the statutory framework.
The judgment recognises constitutional remedies for enforcement of the fundamental right and also refers to restitutionary remedies under Sections 38 to 40 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963 against relevant public authorities. These remedies are distinct from compensation under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. Compensation addresses the consequences of an accident; restitutionary or constitutional relief can address the underlying public-authority failure relating to pedestrian infrastructure.
Abstract
This article examines the constitutional basis of the fundamental right to walk recognised by the Supreme Court in Maniyar Iliyaz @ Shaik Riyaz v. P. Ayyappan (2026). It traces the jurisprudential context from Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation, through Sodan Singh v. New Delhi Municipal Committee and Municipal Corporation of Delhi v. Gurnam Kaur, to the express constitutional articulation in 2026. It analyses Articles 19(1)(d) and 21 alongside Articles 19(1)(a), (b), (c), (e) and (g), the Street Vendors Act, 2014, and relevant municipal law. The central argument is that Maniyar Iliyaz does not derive the right from an entirely new constitutional source; rather, it expressly articulates a right grounded in existing guarantees of movement, life and liberty. At the same time, it marks a significant doctrinal development by giving the freedom of movement a positive infrastructural dimension and identifying correlative duties of public authorities. The article also distinguishes the right to walk from an absolute right to a particular footpath and examines the unresolved legal meaning of the Court’s statement that pedestrian movement on demarcated footpaths takes priority over motorised traffic.
Case Laws
Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation, (1985) 3 SCC 545
In 1981, the Bombay Municipal Corporation decided to evict pavement dwellers and slum residents from the city under Section 314 of the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act. Olga Tellis, a journalist, and several pavement dwellers challenged the proposed evictions, arguing that removing them from the pavements on which they lived would take away their means of livelihood. A five-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice Y.V. Chandrachud held that the right to life under Article 21 includes the right to livelihood, because a person cannot live without the means of living. The Court nevertheless did not recognise a right to encroach upon public pavements. It held that footpaths and pavements are public property intended primarily for passage and upheld the statutory power of removal, while directing procedural safeguards including humane notice and limited resettlement-related measures. Olga Tellis is best understood as a balancing exercise: it expanded Article 21 by recognising livelihood while also acknowledging the legitimate public purpose of preserving pedestrian passage. The Court observed that the facility of pavements for pedestrians had matured into a right of pedestrians.
Sodan Singh v. New Delhi Municipal Committee, (1989) 4 SCC 155
Sodan Singh concerned hawkers and pavement traders who argued that restrictions on street trading violated Article 19(1)(g). A Constitution Bench recognised street trading as an occupation capable of constitutional protection, but also made clear that no citizen has a fundamental right to occupy a particular place on a public street permanently. Street trading is therefore subject to reasonable regulation under Article 19(6), including regulation necessary to preserve pedestrian movement and other public uses of streets. The decision is important because it demonstrates that Article 19 contains competing interests whose exercise must be balanced rather than treated as absolute. Its principles formed part of the broader legal context in which street vending was later regulated by legislation.
Municipal Corporation of Delhi v. Gurnam Kaur, (1989) 1 SCC 101
The Supreme Court decided this case on 12 September 1988, although it was reported in the SCC volume for 1989. Persons carrying on business by squatting on the pavement in front of Delhi’s Irwin Hospital had erected stalls or kiosks, and the Municipal Corporation sought to remove them after complaints concerning obstruction and inconvenience. The occupants relied on an earlier consent order in Jamna Das v. Delhi Administration, in which the Corporation had been directed to provide stalls for pavement squatters. The Supreme Court held that the earlier order had been made by consent, without adjudicating the underlying legal rights, and was expressly stated not to be a precedent. Sections 320 and 322 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act were relevant to the statutory prohibition and removal of unauthorised structures on public streets. The Court rejected the idea that alternative accommodation was necessarily a precondition to removal and stressed the importance of keeping pathways available for pedestrians.
Maniyar Iliyaz @ Shaik Riyaz v. P. Ayyappan, 2026 INSC 647
A five-year-old boy was killed by a tanker while walking to school with his father on a road without a footpath or pedestrian crossing. The Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal awarded the family compensation of approximately Rs 7.82 lakh; the Karnataka High Court reduced the award to Rs 4.70 lakh. The father carried the matter to the Supreme Court through Civil Appeals Nos. 4665-4666 of 2025. The Bench of Justices Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Atul S. Chandurkar first recalculated compensation, applying the methodology discussed in Karuna Parmar v. Prakash Sinha (2025), and enhanced the award to Rs 11,44,628.
The Court then went further and declared that the right to walk is a fundamental right under Part III, integral to the freedom of movement under Article 19(1)(d), read with Articles 19(1)(a), (b), and (c), and Article 21. The right extends to demarcated footpaths and takes priority over the movement of motorised vehicles. The Court identified a corresponding duty of relevant public authorities to endeavour to demarcate, construct, maintain and safeguard footpaths. It directed that the judgment be sent to the Ministries of Housing and Urban Affairs, Rural Development, and Road Transport and Highways, called for a statutory framework and a full-time regulator, and re-registered the matter as a petition under Article 32 titled Re: Fundamental Right to Walk and Footpath, with the Union Government impleaded as a party.
The Constitutional Question: From Movement to Mobility
The most significant feature of Maniyar Iliyaz may be the shift from a negative conception of Article 19(1)(d) to a more positive understanding of what makes movement meaningful. A negative freedom prevents the State from arbitrarily stopping or restricting movement. A positive dimension asks whether public authorities must create reasonable physical conditions in which the freedom can actually be exercised. The 2026 judgment points toward the latter without saying that every person is entitled to identical infrastructure everywhere.
That distinction matters. A right to walk is not necessarily a right to demand a particular design, width or location of footpath in every case. Infrastructure decisions involve planning, land availability, engineering constraints, public finance, accessibility, emergency services and competing uses of public space. The constitutional question is therefore not simply whether the State must build footpaths, but what minimum conditions are necessary to make the fundamental right meaningful and who determines whether those conditions have been met.
The Court’s statement that pedestrian movement on demarcated footpaths takes priority over motorised vehicles creates another unresolved issue. If “priority” is understood narrowly, it may mean that vehicles cannot lawfully occupy or obstruct space specifically designated for pedestrians. If understood more broadly, it could influence road design, allocation of municipal resources, traffic planning and judicial review of infrastructure decisions. Until subsequent cases clarify the doctrine, the prudent reading is that the declaration establishes a constitutional priority for pedestrian use of designated footpath space without automatically resolving every question of urban planning.
The pedestrian–vendor conflict illustrates why the Court’s declaration cannot be applied in isolation. Article 19(1)(d), read with Article 21, supports meaningful pedestrian movement; Article 19(1)(g) protects lawful livelihood activity; Article 19(5) permits reasonable restrictions on movement; and Article 19(6) permits reasonable restrictions on trade. The Street Vendors Act adds a detailed statutory framework for reconciling vending with public-space management. The result should therefore be neither an absolute pedestrian monopoly over every public space nor an unrestricted vendor entitlement to occupy pedestrian infrastructure.
Conclusion
Indian courts have addressed pedestrian passage, pavement occupation, street vending and public infrastructure for decades, but they had not previously articulated the right to walk in the constitutional terms used in 2026. Olga Tellis supplied an important Article 21 foundation by recognising livelihood while preserving the public purpose of pavements. Sodan Singh recognised street trading as an occupation protected under Article 19(1)(g), while rejecting a permanent right to occupy a particular public place. Gurnam Kaur reinforced the statutory power to remove unauthorised pavement occupation and emphasised the need to preserve pedestrian passage. These decisions supplied important fragments of the constitutional and statutory context; they should not, however, be treated as a perfectly linear doctrinal path that inevitably culminated in Maniyar Iliyaz.
The 2026 judgment brings these strands together into an express constitutional declaration: the right to walk is a fundamental right grounded in Article 19(1)(d), read with Articles 19(1)(a), (b), (c) and Article 21, and access to demarcated footpaths forms an important part of making that right meaningful. The judgment also identifies correlative responsibilities for public authorities to endeavour to demarcate, construct, maintain and safeguard pedestrian infrastructure.
The difficult questions now begin. How should courts measure whether infrastructure is constitutionally adequate? What does priority for pedestrians mean in practice? How should duties be allocated between municipal bodies, development authorities, panchayats and State governments? What happens where construction is physically impossible or competes with other essential public interests? And when does a constitutional freedom justify a positive order requiring expenditure or infrastructure creation? Maniyar Iliyaz opens these questions but does not fully answer them.
The judgment also identifies a statutory gap: India does not yet have a dedicated legislation specifically recognising, implementing and enforcing the fundamental right to walk on demarcated footpaths, nor a dedicated regulator tasked specifically with that framework. This does not mean that no law protects pedestrians; existing motor-vehicle and municipal rules address aspects of pedestrian safety and public-space regulation. The gap is more precise: there is no comprehensive statutory framework that translates the newly articulated constitutional right into uniform standards, institutional responsibilities, timelines and enforcement mechanisms. Until such a framework emerges, constitutional remedies and the remedies recognised under the Specific Relief Act may remain important tools for accountability.
For a country in which walking remains an essential component of everyday mobility, the constitutional recognition of the right to walk is therefore best understood not as the end of the legal debate, but as its beginning.
FAQ
Q1. Is the right to walk on a footpath now a fundamental right in India?
Yes. In Maniyar Iliyaz @ Shaik Riyaz v. P. Ayyappan, decided on 19 June 2026, the Supreme Court held that the right to walk is a fundamental right under Part III, integral to Article 19(1)(d), read with Articles 19(1)(a), (b), (c) and Article 21.
Q2. Does this mean street vendors can no longer be evicted from footpaths?
No. Street vendors have statutory protections under the Street Vendors Act, 2014 and constitutional protection for lawful trade under Article 19(1)(g), but those protections are subject to statutory regulation and the legitimate preservation of pedestrian movement and other public uses of streets.
Q3. What can a citizen do if a municipal corporation has not provided adequate pedestrian infrastructure?
Following the 2026 judgment, a citizen may invoke constitutional remedies before the appropriate constitutional court, depending on the facts and the nature of the public authority involved. The judgment also recognises restitutionary remedies under Sections 38 to 40 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963 against relevant public authorities.
Q4. Is there a separate law protecting pedestrians in India today?
There are existing laws and regulations dealing with aspects of pedestrian safety, traffic regulation and public-space management. What is presently absent is a dedicated statutory framework specifically recognising and institutionalising the fundamental right to walk on demarcated footpaths, together with a dedicated regulator for that framework.
Q5. How is this remedy different from a compensation claim under the Motor Vehicles Act?
A Motor Vehicles Act claim primarily addresses compensation following an accident. Constitutional or restitutionary relief can instead address the underlying failure of a public authority relating to pedestrian infrastructure, independently of the question of accident compensation.
