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To prevent child marriage registration, HC bars Aadhaar only age verification
The court said that the marriage registration must strictly ensure the parties have reached statutory age—21 years for the groom and 18 years for the bride—on the application date.
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The Allahabad high court issued statewide directions to the UP government to prevent the registration of child marriages, ruling that an Aadhaar card cannot serve as proof of age and prohibiting marriage registrations based solely on Aadhaar records or unverified school transfer certificates.
A single-judge bench comprising Justice Tej Pratap Tiwari issued these directions on October 27, 2026, while examining a petition titled Deepak Pal vs State of U.P. and 3 others.
The court said that the marriage registration must strictly ensure the parties have reached statutory age—21 years for the groom and 18 years for the bride—on the application date.
The state online portal must record the verification source, flag age discrepancies and prevent automatic generation of certificates when verification is incomplete and if documents raise doubt or show a party is underage, the application must be referred to the Child Marriage Prohibition Officer and District Magistrate, observed the court.
The matter came before the court after a marriage was registered by the registering authority on the basis of a school transfer certificate and an Aadhaar card.
The court found that the transfer certificate had not been verified in the prescribed manner. Holding that the registration could not be sustained, the bench observed: “The registering authority therefore had no verified proof of age before it registered the marriage, and thereby did not discharge the duty.”
Rejecting reliance on Aadhaar and unverified educational documents, the court held: “An Aadhaar card cannot prove age and a mere transfer certificate does not answer the description of any class of documents mentioned in section 94(2)(i) of the JJ Act.”
Referring to the Supreme Court judgment in Seema vs Ashwani Kumar, Justice Tiwari observed, “The issue is therefore not merely whether the date of birth is entered in the marriage register, but whether the process of registration is so structured that it meaningfully verifies age and thereby serves the very purpose for which compulsory registration has been contemplated.”
The court further observed: “The date of birth certificate issued by the competent authority under the law governing registration of births and deaths, and the matriculation or equivalent record, shall be dealt with in the prescribed order; other educational or governmental records may be considered in the circumstances and order notified by the State.”
The court has fixed November 27, 2026, as the next date of hearing in the case.
