Aadhar Card: The court on Thursday quashed the order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court which accepted Aadhar card to determine the age of a person who died in a road accident for granting compensation.
Supreme Court on Aadhar Card: The Supreme Court has given a historic verdict on Aadhar Card and said that Aadhar Card is not a valid document to prove age. A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Ujjal Bhuiyan said that Aadhar Card can be used to establish identity, but it is not considered proof of date of birth.
The court on Thursday quashed the order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in which Aadhar Card was accepted to determine the age of a person who lost his life in a road accident for compensation.
School certificate given priority
A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Ujjal Bhuiyan said that the age of the deceased should be determined from the date of birth mentioned in the school leaving certificate under Section 94 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.
The bench said, “We find that the Unique Identification Authority of India, through its Circular No. 8/2023, in reference to an Office Memorandum dated December 20, 2018 issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, has stated that an Aadhaar card may be used to establish identity but it is not a proof of date of birth.”
The case is related to an accident case related to 2015
The apex court accepted the argument of the claimant-appellants and upheld the decision of the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT), which had calculated the age of the deceased on the basis of his school leaving certificate.
The apex court was hearing an appeal filed by the family of a person who died in a road accident in 2015. The MACT, Rohtak, had awarded a compensation of Rs 19.35 lakh which was reduced to Rs 9.22 lakh by the High Court after it observed that the MACT had wrongly applied the age multiplier while determining the compensation.
Difference in age of Aadhaar card and school certificate
The High Court had relied on the Aadhaar card of the deceased and estimated his age to be 47 years. The family argued that the High Court had erred in determining the age of the deceased on the basis of Aadhaar card because if his age is calculated as per his school leaving certificate, then his age at the time of death was 45 years.
