India, June 20 -- The Supreme Court on Friday declared that every citizen has a fundamental right to walk on a demarcated footpath, holding that this right is primary and takes precedence over the movement of motorised vehicles, as it delivered a far-reaching judgment that could reshape urban planning and road design across the country.

A bench of justices PS Narasimha and Atul S Chandurkar ruled that the existence of a road necessarily casts a corresponding legal duty on public authorities to provide and maintain footpaths for pedestrians, making the right judicially enforceable against government agencies that fail to discharge this obligation.

"If a road exists, there must then be a duty to ensure that a footpath is demarcated and ma...