State Focus Madhya Pradesh Law Law & Courts Polity & Governance

An Aadhaar card by itself is not conclusive proof of age, the Madhya Pradesh High Court holds in a motor accident appeal

12 November 2026

A single bench of Justice Amit Seth at the Gwalior bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court has ruled on how the age of a road accident victim must be fixed.
An Aadhaar card on its own, the Court said, does not settle how old its holder is.
It went by the postmortem report instead, which it found the safer record, and put the age of the boy who died at 13 at the time of the accident.
The Motor Accident Claims Tribunal had gone by the Aadhaar card and taken the age as 14 years, 7 months and 9 days.
The claimants had appealed under Section 173 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 for higher compensation, and the appeal was allowed in part.
Monthly income was taken as Rs 7,950 under the State Legal Services Authority guidelines, and a multiplier of 15 was used in place of the Tribunal's 18.
The total went up from the Tribunal's award of Rs 5,45,000 to Rs 8,25,500, a rise of Rs 2,80,500.

Age fixed by the Court: 13 years Monthly income taken: Rs 7,950 Multiplier applied: 15 Compensation held payable: Rs 8,25,500

Why it matters for exams: Aadhaar is issued under the Aadhaar Act, 2016 as proof of identity and not of date of birth, and Section 173 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 is the appeal provision against a Tribunal award.

Kerala PSCUPSC

12 November 2026 Source: Verdictum

In plain words

MACT Motor Accident Claims Tribunal — The tribunal that decides compensation claims for road accidents.

Multiplier Multiplier method — The figure by which annual income is multiplied to work out compensation.