EPS 95 Pension Case Supreme Court Order: This judgement will actually benefit only 10-15 percent of Present EPS'95 pensioners

Dear EPS 95 members,

Giving below the gist of the discussion had with Mr P. Balaji, Coordinator, National Agitation Committee for EPS'95 Pensioners, Tamilnadu Unit.

The Supreme Court's 4th November 2022 judgement has done injustice to majority of pensioners. This judgement will actually benefit only 10-15 percent of Present EPS'95 pensioners who retired before 2014.

Most of the pensioners who retired before 1st September 2014 were not aware of the option to opt for enhanced pension at a future date, as either many organisations did not inform their employees or EPFO did not communicate to various organisations about this clause which was notified on 22nd August 2014.

When most of us were not aware of this notification, where is the question of opting or not?  This is a gross injustice to say the least.

Further it may please be noted that following Justice RC Gupta's judgement in 2016 which validated Kerala High Court's judgement, some pensioners took the opportunity to apply for enhanced pension and got the benefit of enhanced pension during 2016-18, when EPFO withdrew the circular and filed Special Leave Petition in SC.

Also, this judgement has not mentioned anything about raising minimum pension from Rs 1000 to Rs 7,500 plus DA and other medical benefits. Hence our struggle will have to be taken ahead to achieve our main demand of getting justice to ONE AND ALL

Messrs P. Balaji and G. Murugaiyan have already initiated discussions for future course of Action, such that all the pensioners who retired prior to 1st September 2014 also get the enhanced pension.

Thanks and Regards

SR Muralidharan

Executive Committee Member, National Agitation Committee

(Tamilnadu Unit)