India’s cities are locked in a quiet but intensifying struggle over one of their most contested public spaces: the footpath.
For pedestrians, a footpath is basic infrastructure—a strip of ground that should allow people to move safely, independently and with dignity. For millions of informal workers, the same stretch of pavement is a workplace, a source of daily income and often the difference between survival and destitution.
On 19 June 2026, the Supreme Court of India brought this tension into sharp constitutional focus. In Maniyar Iliyaz @ Shaik Riyaz & Anr. v. P. Ayyappan & Ors., the Court declared that the right to walk is a fundamental right under Part III of the Constitution. It is integral to the right to movement under Article 19(1)(d), read with Articles 19(1)(a), 19(1)(b), 19(1)(c) and Article 21. That right, the Court held, includes access to demarcated footpaths, and pedestrian movement takes priority over motorised vehicles.
The judgment is a significant intervention in a country where pedestrians routinely navigate broken pavements, parked cars, construction debris and commercial spillover. It arose from a tragedy: a five-year-old child killed by a tanker while walking to school with his father on a road that had neither a footpath nor a pedestrian crossing. The Court used the case to insist that walking is not a secondary form of mobility to be accommodated only after vehicles have claimed their space.
Urban development authorities, municipal corporations, municipalities and panchayats now carry a clear constitutional duty to demarcate, construct, maintain and safeguard footpaths where roads exist. Citizens can seek remedies, including restitution and compensation, when that duty is breached.
Yet the recognition of pedestrian rights cannot be read in isolation. Parliament had already enacted the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, precisely because street vending occupied a precarious legal space between regulation and illegality. The Act explicitly includes people who vend on streets, lanes, sidewalks, footpaths and pavements. It creates a framework of surveys, Town Vending Committees, vending zones and certificates of vending.
The challenge before Indian cities is therefore not how to “clear” footpaths. It is how to reconcile two legitimate public interests: the right to safe pedestrian movement and the right of vulnerable urban workers to earn a living.
When the Footpath Is Also a Workplace
Urban planning in India has long privileged cars and parking. Pedestrians have been left with whatever space remains after carriageways, utilities, advertisements and commercial activity have taken their share. The results are visible everywhere: narrow or broken footpaths, vehicles parked on walkways, informal commerce spilling onto pavements, and people forced into traffic.
These are not mere inconveniences. They can be lethal.
The Supreme Court’s judgment correctly elevates pedestrian safety. But it raises an immediate practical question: what happens when the footpath is also someone’s workplace?
The Street Vendors Act does not grant every vendor an unrestricted right to occupy every pavement. It creates a system through which vending is to be surveyed, regulated and spatially planned. Town Vending Committees are central to determining holding capacity and designating vending zones—spaces that can include portions of footpaths and sidewalks.
A regulated street vendor, an unauthorised permanent structure, a parked vehicle and construction debris may all obstruct a footpath. They do not share the same legal status. Treating them as identical is an administrative convenience that the law does not support.
From Safety to “Anti-Encroachment”
The danger lies in simplification. A judicial direction to ensure accessible footpaths can quickly become, at the municipal level, an instruction to remove everything from the pavement. Visually clear footpaths may result. Better urban governance does not necessarily follow.
Recent experience in several cities illustrates the tension.
In Bengaluru, the Greater Bengaluru Authority launched a city-wide “Safe Footpath Campaign” from 1 July 2026. Officials said the drive would follow both the Supreme Court’s directions and the Street Vendors Act. Vendor organisations alleged harassment, seizures and eviction. Thousands gathered at Freedom Park, calling for an end to the drive and protection of their livelihoods. Both sides invoke legitimate claims: administrators point to the pedestrian’s right to an unobstructed path; vendors point to their legal status and the need for due process.
Hyderabad has seen repeated High Court interventions. In February 2026 the Telangana High Court directed the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation to clear footpath encroachments and prevent recurrence. In May it ordered a broader “grand clean-up.” By June the Court was again questioning compliance. The urgency is understandable—older people, children and persons with disabilities should not be forced into traffic. Yet reducing a complex spatial problem to episodic enforcement risks ignoring the statutory framework Parliament created for vendors.
Amritsar shows the familiar cycle. Municipal drives in March, May and June 2026 removed rehri-phadi vendors from footpaths and roadside spaces. Officials noted that some vendors returned after enforcement teams left. Repeated eviction without viable alternatives does not resolve the underlying conflict; it simply reproduces it.
Municipalities in Gujarat have also started evicting street vendors in the name of the Supreme Court order, irrespective of its spirit and in disregard of the Street Vendors Act.
Who Pays the Price?
Street vending is not merely a land-use issue. It is a major component of the urban informal economy. It provides livelihoods to workers with limited access to formal employment and capital, while supplying affordable goods and services to city residents.
Location is often critical. A vendor’s income may depend on proximity to a market, transport hub, school or office district. Relocating someone several kilometres away can satisfy an administrative order while destroying the livelihood. Women vendors, migrant workers and low-income households that depend on daily earnings are particularly vulnerable.
Relocation therefore cannot be judged solely by whether a person has been physically moved. The relevant questions are more demanding: Was the statutory process followed? Was the vendor surveyed? Was a Certificate of Vending issued where applicable? Is the new location economically viable? Does it offer reasonable customer access? What happened to the vendor’s income?
These are questions of urban governance, not merely law and order.
The Town Vending Committee Cannot Become Invisible
The Town Vending Committee is one of the most important institutions created by the 2014 Act. It recognises that street vending cannot be managed solely through municipal enforcement. Vendors are stakeholders in the planning and regulation of public space.
In many cities the institutional architecture remains weak or poorly implemented. Large-scale eviction drives conducted without proper surveys, designation of vending and non-vending zones, and transparent processes raise a larger question: is the state complying with the legislative framework Parliament enacted?
The Supreme Court’s judgment should not become a reason to render the Town Vending Committee irrelevant. If pedestrian safety requires the reorganisation of vending, the same process should identify where and how vending can continue without compromising continuous pedestrian movement.
Coexistence, Not Displacement
The conflict between pedestrian rights and vendor rights need not be a constitutional zero-sum game. A principle of harmonious construction offers a more constructive path.
The first principle is non-negotiable: every pedestrian must have a safe, continuous and accessible passage. This does not require every square metre of public space to be emptied of economic activity. Where street width and design permit, cities can create differentiated spaces—a clearly protected pedestrian corridor alongside designated vending areas. Where space is genuinely insufficient, relocation may be necessary. But it should be planned rather than punitive, and the new location should be economically viable.
Urban design can solve problems that pure enforcement cannot.
From Eviction Drives to Spatial Governance
The deeper problem is the absence of integrated street management. Municipalities often treat pedestrians, vendors, parking, traffic, public transport, utilities and commercial activity through separate administrative silos. One agency removes vendors. Another permits parking. Another digs up the footpath and leaves it unrepaired. Commercial establishments extend into public space. The pedestrian is left to negotiate whatever remains.
The Supreme Court’s judgment provides an opportunity to change this model. Municipal authorities should pursue at least five measures:
- Protect a continuous pedestrian zone on every major street, designed around the needs of children, older persons and persons with disabilities.
- Implement the Street Vendors Act in letter and spirit—functioning Town Vending Committees, completed surveys, transparent designation of vending and non-vending areas.
- Distinguish different forms of occupation. A legally recognised vendor, an unauthorised permanent structure, a parked vehicle and construction debris are not the same.
- Make relocation economically viable, with reasonable access to customers, transport and basic services.
- Make street planning participatory, bringing vendors, residents, pedestrians, persons with disabilities, transport agencies, traffic police and municipal officials into the same conversation.
The Real Constitutional Question
The significance of Maniyar Iliyaz should not be reduced to the image of an empty footpath. The deeper question is what kind of city the right to walk seeks to create.
A city where pedestrians can walk safely is more democratic and inclusive. A city that achieves this by removing the livelihoods of its poorest workers without due process cannot claim to have achieved urban justice.
The Constitution does not require a choice between the dignity of a pedestrian and the dignity of a worker. Both deserve protection. The task of the state is to reconcile competing claims over scarce public resources through law, planning and democratic governance.
Indian cities need footpaths that people can safely walk on. They also need public spaces where street vendors can earn a living without constant threat of arbitrary eviction.
The answer is not vendors versus pedestrians. It is better planning versus arbitrary enforcement.
The Supreme Court’s recognition of the right to walk should become an opportunity to demand better streets, more accountable municipal governance and genuine spatial planning—not a licence for indiscriminate clearance. A truly inclusive city should be able to achieve both: a safe path for the pedestrian and a dignified livelihood for the vendor.
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*Development expert
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