EPS 95 Higher Pension Stopped by EPFO 4 Main Reason, Every EPS 95 Pensioner Must know this.

As all EPS 95 Pensioners know that the work of Pension Revision even in respect of Un-Exempted Establishments across the country has been stopped by EPFO since 18.5.2019 onwards on one plea or the other. It has also been observed that EPFO is mainly stressing on the following FOUR issues in various Courts:
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1. Pensioners from Exempted establishments not eligible for pension on higher salary

2. Pensioners who have not exercised option under Para 26(6) of EPF Scheme and under Para 11(3) of EPS’95 DURING THEIR SERVICE TENURE are not eligible for pension on higher salary

3. Those who retired after 31.8.2014 are not eligible for pension on higher salary

4. Financial Constraints

Sr. No. 1, 2 & 3 can be taken care by the advocates easily as per their professional expertise, judgments delivered in the past and various documents procured from EPFO/MoL&E However, I would once again suggest that all the petitioners to join hands and plan a strategy even for engaging Sr. Advocates for the arguments as you never know how long the battle may continue and the retirees have very limited financial resources too. One person to represent one Petition and they (NON PETITIONERS NOT TO BE ASSOCIATED IN THIS EXERCISE) should leave everything away and with a broad & open mind join hands with other petitioners to plan the future course of action jointly. This will be in the common interest of all. If all the advocates will start their arguments without any strategy, I fear, EPFO/MoL&E may have an upper hand during the arguments and any weak point spoken by any advocate will be picked up to turn the focus of the Court to the disadvantage of petitioners. Such trailer had probably been seen by the pensioners/advocates present in the Court on 6.2.2020 when there were a large number of advocates including ELEVEN Sr. Advocates representing Petitioners and FIVE Sr. Advocates representing Respondents.

Point No. 4

a) The advocates can fight/counter on law points and by citing various judgments but if EPFO is able to turn the issue towards finances (even if it is unlawful) and the Court also considers the same for whatever reason it may be, the Advocates may not be in a position to argue on financial data unless they are equipped with authentic data prepared by some Actuary of Repute. Such an Actuary should also be present in the Court on the date of Arguments to assist the Court, IF THE NEED BE (IF ASKED BY THE COURT).

b) Calculations being done by the petitioners (& shared with advocates) even if those are very perfectly done, they can’t be relied upon by the Courts particularly against the calculations done by an Actuary, as it has been submitted by EPFO in the Review Petition.

c) Actuary report needs to be countered by the reports by another Actuary (if possible by the best & reputed TOP Actuary)

d) I would rather suggest that there should be such documents/reports prepared by three different TOP ACTUARIES of the Country as their reports cannot be negated/ignored so easily and shall have to be considered and these are, in my view, essentially required to counter EPFO’s stand and luckily, we have a copy of the report of Actuary as submitted by EPFO in SC.

e) Atleast on this issue, all the petitioners will have to come on the same page and such an exercise needs to be done jointly.Different calculations done by different petitioners and presented before the SC will be suicidal.