Geetha Kanchan, 68, who retired as an attender at a cooperative bank, was able to get her provident fund pension restored with the intervention of the Human Rights Protection Foundation, Udupi, with whose efforts the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission directed the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) to continue her ₹1,756 monthly pension.
Neither the EPFO nor her bank, Mahalakshmi Cooperative Bank, Hejmady branch, could explain why ₹500 out of the ₹1,756 monthly pension was being deducted for non submission of ‘joint declaration’ from May 2020, said foundation chairman Ravindranath Shanbhag. Nor could they justify the process of recovering ₹50,417 ostensibly paid in excess from Ms. Kanchan.
As the foundation helped Ms. Kanchan to fight the case before the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, the latter recently directed EPFO to restore her pension and not to continue with the recovery process, Dr. Shanbhag said. It also directed EPFO to pay ₹25,000 to her towards mental agony and ₹10,000 towards cost of the litigation within a month.
The commission also noted pension was not a donation, but an asset acquired by an employee upon retirement from the service. It is also a right to life, the commission said adding that right could not be curtailed for a missing document in the files.
Dr. Shanbhag said Ms. Kanchan retired from in 2014 after serving the bank for 17 years and was getting ₹1,756 monthly pension from EPFO after the retirement out of contributions made by her and the bank.
However, Udupi Regional EPFO wrote to her on September 22, 2020, that ₹500 would be deducted from her pension and later told her that ₹50,417 paid in excess would be recovered from her as arrears of revenue dues.
Despite approaching the EPFO regional office and the bank many times, Ms. Kanchan was unable to discern the reason for deduction. Finally, she was told the copy of her ‘joint declaration’ with the bank subscribing to EPFO was missing from the pension file and the organisation was getting audit objections.
Dr. Shanbhag said an uneducated Ms. Kanchan was not in any way responsible for the missing document and she should not have been victimised for the fault of others.
