JUDGMENT

1. Like any young father, the appellant lovingly readied his five-year-old son and left home at 9 am to drop him at the neighbourhood school. Who could have ever imagined that it would be the last walk with his son? As father and son were walking towards the school, a tanker came from behind and struck the boy, crushing his waist and lower body. He succumbed to the injuries.

2. Take it for granted, there was neither a footpath nor a pedestrian crossing.

3. Accidents like this continue to occur, perhaps they are inevitable till we restructure our rights regime as regards access to roads and recognise their correlative duties. Till then, we will continue to cope with these tragedies by routinely transforming them into FIRs and Motor Accidents Claims. We are not referring to road safety, for this Court is deeply concerned about it and is, in fact, monitoring the implementation of safety guidelines¹ S. Rajaseekaran v. Union of India in W.P. (C) No. 295/2012; this Court also passed certain guidelines in In Re: Phalodi Accident, 2026 INSC 388 as well. The issue is something more fundamental, and it is in recognition of the simplest of the simple human activity- “Walking”. While the right to walk is inextricably connected to life, our Constitution recognises and guarantees it as a fundamental right – “All citizens shall have the right…to move freely throughout the territory of India² [Article 19(1)(d)]”.

4. It is necessary, rather compelling, that we first disabuse our minds of associating this “right to move” only with movement on wheels. We have started walking long before wheels were put on our path. The primary right of movement under Article 19(1)(d) is the Fundamental Right to Walk, a right that precedes the right to move on wheels and this precious right must extend to guaranteeing access to safe and well demarcated footpath. The citizen’s fundamental right to walk on a demarcated footpath is primary and shall have priority over movement by motorised vehicles.

5. It is rather strange that we failed to focus on recognizing and securing this “right to walk”. It may be because wheels eclipsed our imagination, and our municipal administration was busy creating roads that are suitable for motorised vehicles. It could also be elitism to start with, for machines with wheels were only for the rich, but as economies progressed and cheaper motor vehicles were introduced, the entire spectrum of motorised transportation dominated the roads, pushed aside the walkers to the extent that they are treated as a nuisance for the drivers who routinely run over the walkers and their footpaths. This should stop from now on as we declare the fundamental right to walk on demarcated footpaths alongside motorised roads.

6. The Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, is not and has never been the statute that recognises the fundamental right to walk. In fact, the Motor Vehicles Act has been an impediment and, in many ways, undermined the precious rights of walkers. The absence of safe and comfortable footpaths to walk on, and even when they exist, their subjugation to motor transport, has been a civilizational problem.

7. It is not at all difficult to imagine how a wide, well-demarcated and uninterrupted footpath can change the beauty of and equitable access to our cities and towns - this could truly be transformative of our urban and rural living. In reality, how much does it take to create a well-demarcated footpath wherever a road exists? All that the fundamental right t