Supreme Court Overturns Aadhaar-Based Age Determination for Road Accident Compensation

The Supreme Court has overturned a Punjab and Haryana High Court decision that accepted an Aadhaar card as proof of age for determining compensation in a road accident case. The ruling came from a bench consisting of Justices Sanjay Karol and Ujjal Bhuyan. They emphasized that under Section 94 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, a school leaving certificate should be used to determine age, not an Aadhaar card.

The bench referred to a 2023 circular from the Unique Identification Authority of India, which clarified that while Aadhaar can verify identity, it is not definitive proof of date of birth. The Supreme Court upheld the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) ruling, which calculated the deceased’s age using his school certificate, setting it at 45 years.

The case involved a 2015 accident where the MACT had originally awarded ₹19.35 lakh in compensation, later reduced to ₹9.22 lakh by the High Court, which had based its decision on an Aadhaar card, determining the victim’s age as 47.

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