Right of way: On the right to walk on demarcated footpaths

📌 Summary:

• The Supreme Court, expanding Article 21 (as it has since the 1970s), has declared the right to walk on demarcated footpaths a fundamental right; the Bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and Atul S. Chandurkar reaffirmed it
• Trigger: a case seeking higher compensation for the death of a five-year-old boy struck and killed by a tanker lorry in Karnataka
• Problem highlighted: as motorised transport spread, walking became an "inconvenience" and motorists treat pedestrians as a "nuisance"; there is no national pedestrian-rights law, so responsibility is split across municipal laws, town-planning statutes and street-design guidelines
• Most cities lack continuous, unobstructed footpaths; where they exist they are encroached on by parking, vendors, utilities, construction debris and road-widening
• Core argument: a right to walk is desirable, but the idea that pavements belong to pedestrians must become cultural to endure; rights-based laws meant to change public culture have had mixed success
• Precedents the editorial cites: (1) Street Vendors Act 2014 (under Article 19(1)(g)) — municipalities still run "eviction drives", implementation lags because surveys, town vending committees and vending zones are delayed, enabling informal rent-seeking; the new judgment may clash with this Act; (2) COTPA 2003 curbed public smoking over 20 years not through "restitutionary remedies" but consistent messaging and small immediate fines; (3) despite Swachh Bharat, littering persists because the law stresses citizens' duty to segregate while the state neglects its duty to collect segregated waste
• Causal warning: if the state does not build footpaths, the citizen's right is meaningless; the Court's "constitutional nudge" may bring no real change if it stays only a tool for compensation after a tragedy
• Equity risk: a state could use it to "cleanse" streets of informal commerce, gentrify public spaces and criminalise the survival of the urban poor
• Solution proposed: the nudge's main path to success is moving state funds toward pedestrian infrastructure

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS1 (urbanisation, urban public spaces, informal sector) and GS2 (Article 21 expansion, judicial activism, rights vs implementation).

📝 Prelims Facts:

• Right to walk on footpaths read into Article 21 (right to life)
• Street Vendors Act, 2014 protects vendors under Article 19(1)(g)
• COTPA = Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003

🔑 Key Term: Constitutional nudge — a court declaration that signals a desirable norm but depends on executive funding and culture change to become real.