[Motor Accident Claim] Aadhar not proof of date of birth; SC affirms age determination using School Leaving Certificate

Supreme Court: While deciding the instant appeal wherein the appellants were aggrieved by Punjab and Haryana High Court’s decision to reduce compensation awarded to them by the Motor Accidents Claim Tribunal (MACT) and applying the date of birth as stated in the deceased person’s Aadhar card to determine the applicable multiplier; the Division Bench of Sanjay Karol* and Ujjal Bhuyan, JJ., took judicial notice of the Circular No.08 of 2023 issued by Unique Identification Authority of India, wherein it was stated that an Aadhar Card, while can be used to establish identity, it is not per se proof of date of birth. Hence, the Court found no error with MACT’s method of age determination of the deceased person, based on his School Leaving Certificate.

The Court also referred to multiple decisions of the several High Courts regarding the issue of using Aadhar card to determine age, and clarified that it has not expressed any view on the merits of those cases, and reference has only been made to them for the limited purpose of examining the suitability of the Aadhar Card as proof of age.

The appellant’s husband and one other person met with an accident in 2015, wherein the husband succumbed to his injuries. Subsequently, the appellant filed a claim petition before MACT, Rohtak. With an award dated 26-4-2017, an amount of Rs.19,35,400 was passed with an interest at 7.5% from the date of filing of the claim petition. For the minor children of the deceased, MACT directed the respondent that their share of Rs.6 lakhs each be placed in fixed deposit till the age of majority or for a period of five years, whichever was later.

Respondent appealed against the aforesaid order, and Punjab and Haryana High Court reduced the amount awarded by MACT. The High Court further observed that with respect to the age at the time of death, the Aadhar Card of the deceased recorded his date of birth to be 1-1-1969; thus, the age thus came to 47 years. Hence, the multiplier applicable would be 13.

Aggrieved with the High Court’s decision, the appellant approached the Supreme Court, contending that the multiplier applicable would be 14 since, in the School Leave Certificate the date of birth of the deceased was shown as 7-10-1970, hence his age, then at the time of the accident was 45 years. The matter was sent to Lok Adalat, but it could not be resolved.

Court’s Assessment:

Perusing the matter, the Court determined 2 issues-

(a) in case of conflict of the dates of birth between the two documents, as in this case between the School Leaving Certificate and the Aadhar Card, which of the two is to be taken as authoritative; and

(b) whether in the facts of the case, the High Court’s reduction of the compensation awarded by the learned MACT, was justified and in accordance with law?

Deliberating over the conflict between age determination via Aadhar Card as done by High Court and School Leaving Certificate as done by MACT, the Court noted that School Leaving Certificate has been accorded statutory recognition under Section 94(2) of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.

Relying on K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (5-J.), (2019) 1 SCC 1, the Court took note of the purpose behind introduction of the Aadhar Scheme which was, “(…) To serve this as proof of identity, which is unique in nature, as each individual will have only one identity with no chance of duplication. Another objective was that this number could be used for identification of beneficiaries for transfer of benefits, subsidies, services and other purposes. This was the primary reason, viz. to ensure correct identification of targeted beneficiaries for delivery of various subsidies, benefits, services, grants, wages and other social benefits schemes which are funded from the Consolidated Fund of India”.

The Court further noted that the issue of Aadhar Card being sufficient proof of a person’s age, had come up for consideration before some High Courts, albeit in the context of different statutes; and referred to several such decisions, where there seemed to be a consensus on not using Aadhar as proof for date of birth. The Court also clarified that it is not expressing any view on the merits of the referred High Court judgments.

Taking judicial note of the Circular, issued by UIDAI in reference to an Office Memorandum issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology dated 20-12-2018, the Court found that it was stated that Aadhar per-se is not a proof of date of birth.

Hence taking note of the position with respect to the determination of age, the Court did not hesitate to accept contention the appellant regarding School Leaving Certificate and affirmed the method of age determination by MACT in the instant case.

As regards the reduction of compensation by the High Court, the Court found that no reason was recorded by the High Court in the reduction of the rate of interest from 7.5% to 6%. “The High Courts cannot lose sight of the fact that compensation received by way of claims filed before MACT is either born out of injury or death of the claimant or family member of the claimants and so, the amount awarded must do justice to them. It necessarily has to be just and reasonable”.

Hence the Supreme Court deemed it fit to enhance the rate of interest to 8%, to be paid from the date of filing of the claim petition and applied the multiplier 14 by taking into consideration the deceased’s age as per his School Leaving Certificate. Thus, the total amount of compensation was determined to Rs.14,41,500, and in the interest of just compensation was rounded off to Rs.15,00,000 with 8% interest.