New Delhi : The Supreme Court has ruled that an Aadhaar card cannot be used as a valid document to determine a person’s age for legal purposes. The verdict came while overturning a Punjab and Haryana High Court order, which had accepted the Aadhaar card to establish the age of a road accident victim for compensation calculations.
A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Ujjal Bhuyan emphasized that the age should be determined based on the school leaving certificate, as outlined under Section 94 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015. The court highlighted that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), through a 2023 circular, had reiterated that Aadhaar can only confirm identity, not date of birth.
The ruling came during the hearing of an appeal filed by the family of a man who died in a 2015 road accident. The Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT), Rohtak, had initially awarded a compensation of Rs 19.35 lakh to the family, calculating the deceased’s age based on his school leaving certificate. However, the Punjab and Haryana High Court later reduced the compensation to Rs 9.22 lakh, relying on the age mentioned in the deceased’s Aadhaar card, which listed him as 47 years old.
The family argued that the deceased’s correct age at the time of death was 45 years, as per the school certificate. The Supreme Court agreed with the family’s contention and upheld the tribunal’s decision to use the school certificate for calculating the compensation.
This judgment underscores the limited use of Aadhaar cards in legal matters and reinforces the reliance on official educational records for determining age.
