Aadhaar Card: Today Aadhaar card is connected with our every small and big needs. Aadhaar card is considered as an important document from buying a SIM card to opening a bank account, but the Supreme Court has made it clear in one of its judgments that Aadhaar can only be used as an identity card and is not a certificate to determine your age.
Aadhaar card will not work here
The Supreme Court quashed the order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court which accepted Aadhaar card to determine the age of a person who lost his life in a road accident for compensation.
A bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Ujjal Bhuiyan said that the age of the deceased should be calculated under Section 94 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 along with the date of birth mentioned in the school living certificate.
UIDAI also does not consider age certificate as valid
The bench mentioned, ‘We have noticed that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) vide its Circular No. 8/2023, in reference to the office advertisement issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on 20 December 2018, has said that Aadhaar card can be used for establishing identity. May come, but not a firm certificate for this age.’
What is the whole matter?
The Supreme Court accepted the contention of the claimants-appellants and upheld the decision of the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) which calculated the age of the deceased on the basis of his school leaving certificate. The Supreme Court was hearing an appeal filed by the family of a person who died in an accident in 2015. MACT, Rohtak ordered a compensation of Rs 19.35 lakh. This was reduced to Rs 9.22 lakh by the High Court after observing that the MACT had wrongly applied the calculation of age while determining the compensation. The High Court, while relying on the Aadhaar card of the deceased, estimated the age of the deceased to be 47 years. The family contended that the High Court erred in determining the age of the deceased on the basis of the Aadhaar card as his age at the time of death was 45 years if calculated as per his leaving certificate.
