The Supreme Court on Thursday set aside a Punjab and Haryana High Court order that accepted Aadhaar details to determine the age of a road accident victim in order to grant compensation to their families, reported Live Law. The court said such details could be better determined using a school leaving certificate.
The bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Ujjal Bhuyan issued the order after hearing an appeal by the relatives of a man who died in a road accident in 2015, PTI reported. After the man’s death, the Motor Accidents Claim Tribunal granted Rs 19,35,400 to his family in compensation.
However, the High Court subsequently held that the tribunal had wrongly applied the age multiplier while determining compensation and reduced the amount to Rs 9,22,336.
The age multiplier for compensation under the Motor Vehicles Act is based on the age of the victim or claimant.
As per the Act, the High Court determined the age of the man to be 47 years using the details on his Aadhaar card and applied a multiplier of 13, according to Live Law.
However, the appellants moved the Supreme Court against the order, saying that the man’s age at the time of the accident was 45 years, so a multiplier of 14 would apply while granting compensation.
They submitted the victim’s school leaving certificate as evidence of his age being recorded incorrectly on his Aadhaar card.
In its order on Thursday, the bench cited a circular from the Unique Identification Authority of India in 2023, which said that an Aadhaar card was intended to establish identity and could not serve as proof of date of birth. The authority is the statutory body that issues Aadhaar numbers.
“That being the position, as it stands with respect to the determination of age, we have no hesitation in accepting the contention of the claimant-appellants, based on the School Leaving Certificate,” the court said in its order.
It also said that the age of the man 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. This section outlines the process to determine a person’s age.
The bench said no error was found in the Motor Accidents Claim Tribunal’s determination of the man’s age based on his school leaving certificate.
“The appeals are allowed, the total amount, i.e., Rs 14,41,500, in the interest of just compensation is rounded off to Rs 15,00,000/- with 8% interest from the date of filing of the claim petition to be released to the rightful claimants in the manner directed by the Tribunal,” the court said.
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