'Aadhaar is not a document to determine age', Supreme Court quashes decision of Punjab and Haryana High Court

The Supreme Court said that Aadhaar was no document for determining age. The apex court on Thursday quashed the order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which accepted an Aadhaar card to determine the age of a road accident victim for giving compensation.

In such a case, a bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Ujjal Bhuiyan said that the age of the deceased is required to be ascertained and determined with reference to the date of birth as recorded in the School Leaving Certificate. Further, the bench said that the Unique Identification Authority of India vide Circular No. 8/2023 has clarified that while an Aadhaar Card may be relied upon to establish the identity, yet the same is not a proof of date of birth.

The apex court upheld the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) decision, which had determined the age of the deceased based on his school leaving certificate. The apex court was hearing an appeal filed by the relatives of a person who died in a road accident in 2015.

While the MACT at Rohtak granted compensation of Rs 19.35 lakh to the family of the victim, the High Court, after considering that the MACT had wrongly applied the age multiplier in determining compensation, reduced it to Rs 9.22 lakh. The High Court had relied upon the Aadhaar card of the victim and estimated his age approximately at 47 years.

The family contended that the High Court had erred in fixing the age of the deceased based on an Aadhaar card, inasmuch as if his age is calculated as per his school leaving certificate, he was 45 years old when he died.

The school leaving certificate is the certificate which is given to any student for certifying that he has completed his studies up to a certain level from an institution. This contains the name of the institution and the level of studies completed by the candidate. Based on this, the student gets admission to other schools.