Maniyar Iliyaz @ Shaik Riyaz & Anr. v. P. Ayyappan & Ors.
Background
A father was walking his five-year-old son to school when a tanker struck the boy from behind on a road with neither a footpath nor a pedestrian crossing, killing him. The father's compensation claim under the Motor Vehicles Act was awarded Rs. 7,82,000 by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, but the High Court, on the insurer's appeal, reduced this to Rs. 4,70,000. The father appealed to the Supreme Court, which used the case as an occasion to address a much larger constitutional question about the absence of safe pedestrian infrastructure in India.
Decision Breakdown
Beyond deciding the compensation dispute, the Supreme Court declared for the first time that the "right to walk" is a fundamental right under Part III of the Constitution (flowing from the right to freedom of movement under Article 19(1)(d), read with Articles 19(1)(a)-(c) and Article 21) and that this right extends to guaranteed access to safe, demarcated footpaths, which must take priority over motorised vehicle movement. It held that this right creates a correlative, enforceable duty on urban development authorities, municipal corporations, municipalities and panchayats to demarcate, construct and maintain footpaths wherever roads exist, and that violation entitles citizens to constitutional and civil remedies (including under Sections 38-40 of the Specific Relief Act) independent of any Motor Vehicles Act claim. On the compensation itself, the Court held the High Court erred in reducing the award, and following its own recent precedent on a similarly-aged deceased child (Karuna Parmar v. Prakash Sinha), recalculated the compensation using minimum-wage-based notional income, future prospects, and the standard multiplier, raising the total to Rs. 11,44,628. The Court also directed the Registry to re-number the case as an Article 32 petition titled "Re: Fundamental Right to Walk and Footpath," impleaded the relevant central ministries, and referred the matter for consideration of a dedicated statutory framework and regulator.
Lesson Learnt
The Supreme Court has now recognised walking on a safe, demarcated footpath as a fundamental constitutional right, not merely an incidental concern of traffic law: citizens harmed by the absence of footpaths can pursue constitutional remedies against municipal and urban authorities separately from, and in addition to, any compensation claim under the Motor Vehicles Act.