Aadhaar card not valid document to determine age: Supreme Court
New Delhi, Oct 24: The Supreme Court on Thursday set aside an order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court which had accepted Aadhaar card for determining the age of a road accident victim to grant compensation.
A bench comprising Justices Sanjay Karol and Ujjal Bhuyan, therefore, said the age of the deceased 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.
"We find that the Unique Identification Authority of India, by way of its circular number 8 of 2023, has stated, in reference to an office memorandum issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology dated December 20, 2018, that an Aadhaar Card, while can be used to establish identity, is not per se proof of date of birth," noted the bench.
When it came to determining the age, the top court accepted the contention of the claimant-appellants before it and upheld the judgment of the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) which calculated the deceased's age on the basis of his school leaving certificate.
The top court was hearing an appeal filed by kin of a man who died in a road accident in 2015.
MACT, Rohtak awarded a compensation of Rs 19.35 lakh which was reduced to Rs 9.22 lakh by the high court after noting the MACT had wrongly applied the age multiplier while determining the compensation.
The high court had relied on the deceased's Aadhaar card to calculate his age as 47 years.
The family contended the high court erred in determining the deceased's age on the basis of the Aadhaar card as his age, if calculated as per his school leave certificate, was 45 years at the time of death.
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Primary accused in 96.6 pc POCSO cases were close acquaintances: NCRB
New Delhi (PTI): In 96.6 per cent of 44,126 cases of sexual abuse of minors, close acquaintances have emerged as the primary offenders, according to the latest data released by the NCRB.
In its report 'Crime in India 2024' released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 44,126 total cases have been registered under the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act under Sections 4 and 6 which pertain to penetrative sexual assault on minors during the year across the country.
The figures present a grim picture as close acquaintances emerged as primary accused in 42,634 (around 96.6 per cent) of the 44,126 total cases falling in that category, according to the latest NCRB data.
The data shows that family members were involved in 3,658 cases, while family friends, neighbours, employers or other known persons were named in 16,668 cases.
The largest share came from friends, online friends or live-in partners acting on the pretext of marriage, with 22,308 cases.
Cases where the offender was unknown or not identified stood at mere 1,492, or 3.4 per cent of the total.
Among states, Tamil Nadu reported the highest number of POCSO cases at 5,320, followed by Maharashtra at 4,829 and Madhya Pradesh at 3,721. Uttar Pradesh was next with 3,671 cases.
In Union territories, Delhi accounted for the highest number of cases at 1,038, followed by Jammu and Kashmir at 228 and Puducherry at 82. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands reported 77 cases.
The data also shows that Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Tripura and several Union territories, including Chandigarh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Lakshadweep, Ladakh and Puducherry, reported 100 per cent of cases involving known offenders.
