The demand to provide an opportunity to those pensioners who came under the Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS) of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and retired prior to September 1, 2014, without exercising the joint option to avail themselves of higher PF pensions, has been renewed by John Brittas, Member of Parliament from Kerala.
In a seven-page letter sent to the Union Labour Minister Bhupender Yadav a few days ago, (prior to the announcement of the extension of the deadline for exercising the joint option for employees and post-2014 retirees), the MP referred to the November 2022 judgement of the Supreme Court which stated that pre-2014 retirees would not be eligible to get the benefit of its scheme. However, Mr. Brittas contended that the observation in the judgement “does not negate the right of higher pension” for this category of retirees.
As amendments to the PF and Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS), which came into force on September 1, 2014, were not applicable to the retirees in question, it was “deduced” that the retirees were governed by the Court’s judgement in 2016 in the R.C. Gupta case and they were eligible for “submitting joint options afresh without any cut-off date.” The MP also pointed out that the power of the government to formulate a policy in favour of the pre-2014 retirees would be “in addition to and not in derogation” of the right of the retirees to claim higher pensions through courts of law.
The online facility for exercising the option in respect of those who retired after September 1, 2014 or who were still in service had “impractical requirements and complex process,” creating “significant challenges and hurdles” for the pensioners in availing themselves of the benefits of higher pension, the letter said.
To give an illustration, eligible pensioners and employees were unable to file the joint option document due to a mismatch in the spelling of their names either on the Aadhaar database or on the EPF database or the unavailability of Aadhaar-linked mobile numbers. Mr. Brittas demanded a modification in the features of the portal, the dropping of all complex requirements, and making the portal limited to uploadingof the joint option document alone, as the EPFO, which had with it the data of prospective beneficiaries, could carry out all further verifications required.
In addition to urging the authorities to permit an offline mode of submission too, he termed as unnecessary, the requirement of employers uploading the data of wages and EPS contributions of the employees, as they had been furnishing to the EPFO the relevant information from time to time.
