{"id":34532,"date":"2022-11-05T07:56:27","date_gmt":"2022-11-05T02:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=34532"},"modified":"2025-04-20T14:42:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T09:12:18","slug":"all-employees-can-opt-for-epfo-pension-scheme-sc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/all-employees-can-opt-for-epfo-pension-scheme-sc\/","title":{"rendered":"All Employees Can Opt For Epfo Pension SCheme: SC"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>About EPS (Background, Provisions, EPS Amendment 2014)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Sasikumar Case (Kerala High Court\u2019s judgement)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Supreme Court\u2019s judgement\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>In a significant ruling, the Supreme Court has upheld the Employees\u2019 Pension (Amendment) Scheme, 2014.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>About Employees\u2019 Pension Scheme:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>EPF Pension which is technically known as Employees\u2019 Pension Scheme (EPS), is a\u00a0<strong>social security scheme<\/strong>\u00a0provided by the Employees\u2019 Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO).\n<ul>\n<li>The scheme was first launched in\u00a0<strong>1995<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The scheme makes provisions for employees working in the organized sector for a pension after their retirement at the age of 58 years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>EPS (Amendment) Scheme, 2014:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Through the EPS Amendment which became effective from 1 September 2014, the conditions of membership of the EPS Scheme underwent a change.<\/li>\n<li>Through the amendment, the EPS scheme was now applicable to such employees who on or after 16 November 1995 became a member of the EPF Scheme and whose monthly salary on the date of joining was less than or equal to INR 15,000.\n<ul>\n<li>In the original scheme, introduced in 1995, this salary limit was INR 6,500.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Further, the employees were required to contribute at the rate of 1.16% of the salary exceeding INR 15,000 as an additional contribution to the contributions payable by them under the EPF Scheme.<\/li>\n<li>The maximum pensionable salary was set at INR 15,000 per month.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Sasikumar Case (2014):<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The petitioners in Sasikumar case were employees working in different establishments and had approached the Kerala High Court.<\/li>\n<li>The petitioners challenged the validity of the EPS Amendment on the ground that the same had placed them in an adverse position by making it onerous for them if they contribute towards the pension fund based on their actual salary.<\/li>\n<li>It was also argued that the\u00a0cap of INR 15,000 was unrealistic and had no relation to the actual salaries drawn by employees across the country.<\/li>\n<li>The Kerala High Court held in the petitioners&#8217; favour, observing that nowhere in the EPF Act does it allow an additional rate of interest to be imposed for making contributions based on the actual salary of the employees.<\/li>\n<li>In view of the above, the\u00a0Kerala High Court set aside the EPS Amendment along with all consequential orders and proceedings issued by the provident fund authorities based on the EPS Amendment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Supreme Court\u2019s Judgment (November, 2022):<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The EPFO had appealed against the Kerala High Court\u2019s judgement of quashing the Employees\u2019 Pension (Amendment) Scheme, 2014.<\/li>\n<li>A three-judge bench of the\u00a0<strong>Supreme Court agreed with the changes brough in by the amendment and said \u201cwe do not find any flaw in altering the basis of computation of pensionable salary\u201d<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The court said the\u00a0amendments to the scheme shall apply to employees of exempted establishments as they do for the employees of regular establishments.\n<ul>\n<li>There are about 1,300 companies in the list of the EPFO\u2019s (Employees\u2019 Provident Fund Organisation) exempted establishments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>However, the\u00a0court held the amendment requiring members to contribute an additional 1.16 per cent of their salary exceeding Rs 15,000 a month as ultra vires the provisions of the Employees\u2019 Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EPFO is a non-constitutional body that promotes employees to save funds for retirement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}