Aadhaar Card Not Valid for Age Verification, Rules Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday set aside an order from the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which had accepted an Aadhaar card to determine the age of a road accident victim for the purpose of compensation.

A bench comprising Justices Sanjay Karol and Ujjal Bhuyan stated that the age of the deceased should be determined based on the date of birth mentioned in the school leaving certificate, in accordance with the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.

The bench noted, “We have found that the Unique Identification Authority of India, in its circular number 8 of 2023, has stated, referencing an office memorandum issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on December 20, 2018, that while an Aadhaar card can be used to establish identity, it is not, in itself, proof of date of birth.”

Regarding the determination of age, the Supreme Court accepted the arguments of the claimants and upheld the judgment of the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT), which calculated the deceased’s age based on the school leaving certificate.

This decision was made in response to an appeal filed by the relatives of a man who died in a road accident in 2015. The MACT in Rohtak awarded a compensation of ₹19.35 lakh, which was reduced to ₹9.22 lakh by the High Court, noting that the MACT had incorrectly applied the age multiplier in determining the compensation.

The High Court had relied on the Aadhaar card to calculate the deceased’s age as 47 years. The family contended that the High Court erred in determining the deceased’s age based on the Aadhaar card, as according to his school leaving certificate, he was 45 years old at the time of his death.