Sreya Kanugula
After a 21 month gap, the SC started the process of considering both the review petition and the appeal filed by the Employee Provident Funds Organisation (EPFO) and the Central ministry of Labour and Employment, respectively.
This verdict brought a lot of hope to several million pensioners who had waited patiently for their pension with regards to their salaries, for a long period now.
Here are the details on the Employee Provident Fund Organisation’s (EPFO) review petition as stated below.
The bench considering this petition will be a three-member bench led by Justice UU Lalit.
Previously, the High Court of Kerala and the SC had made their verdicts in the pensioners’ favour. But the denial of the entire pension amount created a problem since the Ministry of Labour’s appeal along with the review plea petition of the EPFO remained pending.
On the 1st of April, 2019, the SC upheld the verdict pronounced by the High Court of Kerala on the case of the monthly pension with regards to the Employees’ Pension Scheme. Right after this, the Central ministry of Labour filed their appeal against the verdict made by the Kerala High Court separately from the EPFO’s review petition.
On July 12, 2019, the SC bench led by CJI Ranjan Gogoi issued an order to listen to both these petitions in open court. Unfortunately, further action was not taken upon this matter.
A standing committee created by the parliament had also asked for an explanation regarding the said matter in October 2020.
Some leading officials of the ministry of labour had submitted some suggestions on the matter to the cabinet committee to continue the EPFO and make changes to the structure.
If the Supreme Court continues to uphold its previous decision, the EPFO’s structure could have significant changes as the SC’s review is with regards to the provident fund accounts of the organisation’s subscribers.
Currently, the EPFO has around 2.3 million subscriber pensioners who continue to receive ₹1,000 pensions per month. However, this pension’s contribution to their provident fund is less than one-fourth of it.
At the moment, the EPFO pension’s maximum limit has remained fixed. On the subject of ‘defined contribution,’ the EPF members will be granted benefits in direct proportion to the contributions they make.