There is good news for a certain category of Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS) members. The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has allowed certain eligible members to apply for higher pension under the EPS till May 3, 2023. Do note that the Supreme Court in its judgement dated November 4, 2022, had allowed 4 months to apply for a higher pension under EPS. Consequently, as per the SC order, the last date to apply for a higher pension under EPS was March 3, 2023.

The window to apply for a higher pension till May 3, 2023, is only available to those employees who were members of EPF on September 1, 2014, and continued to be members of the EPF on or after September 1, 2014, but missed the opportunity to apply for higher pension before the expiry of earlier deadline.

The employees who retired prior to September 1, 2014, and opted for higher pension under the pension scheme, made their contributions but their application, later on, was rejected by the EPFO must submit their application form on or before March 3, 2023. This is because no extension has been made for such employees. The circular for these employees was issued on December 29, 2022, and an online application form was issued in January 2023.

Why there was a need to extend the last date to apply for a higher pension under EPS
Though it appears that EPFO has extended the deadline (for certain EPS members) to submit an application for the higher pension under EPS from March 3, 2023, to May 3, 2023, no circular by the retirement fund body has been issued for the same. The last date to submit application for higher pension under EPS is May 3, 2023 is mentioned on the EPFO’s Member’s e-Sewa portal.

Earlier, the EPFO issued guidelines on the matter for eligible employees on February 20, 2023 – just 12 days before the expiry of the Supreme Court mandated deadline.

There was a need for the extension of the deadline as employees wishing to apply needed time to collect various required documents to apply for the higher pension under the EPS. Further, there is no clarification regarding how much money they are required to pay or how much will be deducted from their Employees Provident Fund (EPF) corpus if they opt for a higher pension under EPS. EPFO itself, in its last circular (dated February 20, 2023) on the subject, had mentioned that further guidelines/clarifications would be issued but these are still awaited.