New Delhi: If you are under the impression that Aadhar card is a valid document to prove your age, then think again.
The Supreme Court of India, in a recent order, ruled that Aadhar card cannot be used for determining the age of an individual.
A bench comprising Justices Sanjay Karol and Ujjal Bhuyan set aside an order passed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
The top court said that the age of the deceased had to 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.
“We find that the Unique Identification Authority of India, by way of its circular number 8 of 2023, has stated, in reference to an office memorandum issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology dated December 20, 2018, that an Aadhaar Card, while can be used to establish identity, is not per se proof of date of birth,” noted the Supreme Court.
The two-judge bench was hearing an appeal filed by the kin of a man who died in a road accident in 2015.
Accepting the contention of the claimant-appellants, the top court upheld the judgment of the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT), which calculated the deceased person’s age on the basis of his school-leaving certificate.
MACT, Rohtak had awarded a compensation of Rs 19.35 lakh to kin of the deceased. However, the high court reduced it to Rs 9.22 lakh after noting the MACT had wrongly applied the age multiplier while determining the compensation. The high court’s ruling was based on the deceased’s Aadhaar card which was taken into consideration to calculate his age as 47 years.
The deceased’s family moved the Supreme Court contending that the high court had erred in determining the deceased’s age on the basis of his Aadhaar card. Calculated as per his school certificate, he was 45 years at the time of death.