Key facts
- Supreme Court affirmed the right to walk safely on footpaths
- India is among the world's worst countries for pedestrian road deaths
- Pedestrians form a large share of India's annual road fatality count
- Footpath encroachments routinely force walkers onto carriageways
The Supreme Court of India has passed an order recognising the right of citizens to walk safely on footpaths, a judgment that has drawn attention to the alarming and growing number of pedestrian deaths on Indian roads. The ruling comes as data points to India being one of the world's most dangerous countries for people on foot, with pedestrians comprising a substantial proportion of annual road accident fatalities.
Across Indian cities and towns, footpaths are routinely encroached upon by vendors, parked vehicles, utility infrastructure, and construction debris — effectively forcing pedestrians onto carriageways shared with fast-moving traffic. The Supreme Court's order seeks to establish that unobstructed access to footpaths is not merely a civic amenity but a right that authorities are constitutionally bound to protect.
The ruling has wide implications for urban local bodies, state governments, and traffic authorities, all of whom will now face greater legal accountability for the condition and availability of pedestrian infrastructure. Civil society organisations working on road safety have long argued that India's road fatality crisis cannot be addressed without a serious overhaul of how footpaths are built, maintained, and enforced.
The order also triggered a downstream political response, with the Congress party calling for the right to vote to be declared a fundamental right — drawing an analogy to the court's footpath reasoning. Legal experts, however, note that the pedestrian ruling is grounded in the right to life under Article 21, making it one of the more consequential road-safety interventions by the apex court in recent years.