Aadhaar card not conclusive proof of age, says Madhya Pradesh HC

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has said that an Aadhaar card is not “conclusive proof” of a person’s age.

Justice Amit Seth made the observation in an order dated November 3 while hearing an appeal filed by the parents of a 13-year-old boy who died in a road accident in December 2019.

A Motor Accident Claims Tribunal had earlier relied on the boy’s Aadhaar card to record his age as 14. The insurance company challenged this citing the postmortem report which recorded his age as 13.

The High Court agreed with the insurance company’s argument, holding that a postmortem report was a more reliable indicator of the boy’s age.

“An Aadhaar card is primarily an identity document and cannot, by itself, be treated as conclusive proof of the age of its holder,” the court noted. “On the other hand, the age recorded in the postmortem report is based upon medical assessment conducted in the course of postmortem examination.”

Written by Anamika Pathak. Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.