Discuss how the Supreme Court's suo motu interventions have expanded the scope of Article 21 to include highway and road-user safety. Illustrate with recent examples.

Article 21 has long been read not merely as a restraint on the State but as a positive mandate to protect life. Through suo motu cognisance, the Supreme Court has recently carried this reasoning onto national highways, converting road safety from an administrative concern into an enforceable constitutional obligation.

Suo motu jurisdiction as the route to rights expansion

• The Court acts on its own motion where victims are diffuse and unlikely to litigate — road users being a classic instance.
• It took cognisance in November 2025 after successive crashes near Phalodi (Rajasthan) and Rangareddy (Telangana) killed 34 people [1].
• The device used is continuing mandamus — periodic hearings and interim directions with reporting timelines, rather than a single final verdict [1].

The constitutional expansion

• In In Re: Phalodi Accident (2026), the Court held commuter safety to be an integral facet of the right to life with dignity, describing Article 21 as a "positive mandate" on the State to ensure a safe environment [1].
• This extends the established line of Article 21 readings covering a clean environment, shelter and pedestrians' access to footpaths — public infrastructure is now a rights question, not merely a policy choice.
• Consequently, NHAI and MoRTH must demonstrate measurable compliance, not merely good intent.

Recent illustrations

• April 2026 interim directions: no heavy or commercial vehicle to be parked on any highway carriageway or paved shoulder except at designated bays, lay-byes or wayside amenities, alongside curbs on encroachment [1].
• September 2026: the Bench asked NHAI to consider CCTV surveillance and monitoring rooms at all toll plazas, after NHAI cited only circulars mandating inspections and patrols [2].
• These judicial nudges reinforce executive measures such as mandatory road safety audits, blackspot rectification and the e-DAR accident database [3].

Judicial intervention has thus supplied the constitutional grammar for road safety, though enforcement capacity of highway authorities and State police remains the weak link. Institutionalising these gains — through an empowered National Road Safety Board under the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019, and technology-enabled monitoring — would help India meet SDG 3.6 while giving the Article 21 promise real content on the ground.